Ex  libris 


&        *        £ 


Florence    Marion    Whitehill 


THE  ARTS  IN 
EARLY  ENGLAND 


PI.  A 

Frontispiece  to  Vol.  lit 
See  p.  5 1 1  f. 


THE  KINGSTON  BROOCH 


sSSME 


II 


I,  about  |  natural  size  ; 

II,  enlarged  about  2^  linear 


THE  ARTS 
IN  EARLY  ENGLAND 


By  G.  BALDWIN  BROWN,  M.A. 

WATSON    GORDON    PROFESSOR    OF    FINE    ART 
IN    THE    UNIVERSITY    OF    EDINBURGH 


*  *  * 

SAXON  ART  AND  INDUSTRY 
IN  THE  PAGAN  PERIOD 


WITH  EIGHT  PLATES  IN  COLOUR,  ONE  HUNDRED  AND  FIFTY-EIGHT 

HALF-TONE  PLATES,  TWENTY-NINE  LINE  ILLUSTRATIONS 

IN  THE  TEXT,  AND  EIGHT  MAPS 


NEW    YORK 

E.  P.  DUTTON   AND   COMPANY 

1915 


CONTENTS 


PREFATORY  NOTE 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTORY:    THE   ARRANGEMENT  AND   SCOPE 

OF  THE  VOLUMES i 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    ARTISTIC    ASPECTS    OF    THE     EARLY    ANGLO- 
SAXON  COINAGE 56 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    ANGLO-SAXON     CEMETERY    OF     THE     PAGAN 

PERIOD 114 

CHAPTER  IV 
TOMB  FURNITURE:    (I)    ARMS 192 

CHAPTER  V 

TOMB     FURNITURE  :      (II)     THE     MORPHOLOGY     OF 

THE  FIBULA 243 


vi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  VI 

PAGE 

TOMB     FURNITURE:      (III)     ORNAMENTATION     ON 

FIBULAE  AND  OTHER  OBJECTS 290 


CHAPTER  VII 

TOMB     FURNITURE  :      (IV)     BUCKLES     AND     OTHER 

ADJUNCTS  OF  THE  DRESS 346 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

The  Introductory  Chapter  (p.  i  to  55)  is  intended  to  explain 
the  scheme  followed  in  the  treatment  of  the  various  subjects 
in  the  present  and  the  following  Volume,  and  the  reader  is 
there  informed  of  the  headings  under  which  the  letterpress 
is  divided,  as  well  as  of  the  intention  and  character  of  the 
illustrations.  The  present  Note  is  necessary  in  order  to  afford 
explanations  of  the  arrangement  of  the  volumes  on  the 
mechanical  side,  and  to  give  the  opportunity  for  personal 
references  of  a  grateful  kind. 

As  is  noticed  in  the  Introductory  Chapter  (p.  3),  the 
number  of  things  referred  to  is  embarrassingly  large.  On 
the  plates  there  are  figured  more  than  eight  hundred  objects 
or  groups  of  objects,  each  one  of  which  is  described  in  the 
text,  while  a  large  number  of  them  are  mentioned  more  than 
once.  An  endeavour  has  accordingly  been  made  to  render 
it  as  easy  as  possible  for  the  reader  to  refer  from  illustration 
to  text  or  vice  versa,  and  an  elucidation  of  the  system  of 
reference  should  come  in  the  forefront  of  these  explanations. 
In  the  first  place,  there  is  a  continuous  pagination  through  the 
two  volumes  so  that  all  references  to  '  Vol.  in '  and  *  Vol.  iv ' 
are  eliminated.  References  to  the  pages  are  always  included 
within  brackets  as  (p.  100),  and  this  will  save  the  confusion 
due  to  uncertainty  whether  in  a  particular  case  a  citation  refers 
to  the  pages  of  the  book  itself  or  to  those  of  some  other  work 
that  may  have  just  been  referred  to,  and  will  also  abolish  the 
'  antea '  and  '  postea  '  which  are  inelegant  and  tiresome.     To 


viii  PREFATORY  NOTE 

facilitate  reference  from  the  text  to  a  plate,  especially  in  the 
cases  when  these  are  some  distance  apart,  the  page  facing 
which  the  plate  will  be  found  is  in  most  cases  added,  as  PI.  ex 
(p.  ioo)  and  the  different  objects  on  the  plates  are  marked  in 
clear  arabic  figures,  the  plates  being  distinguished  by  Roman 
numerals.  For  the  reverse  process  of  referring  from  the 
plate  to  the  text  the  following  is  the  system  adopted,  and  the 
reader  is  asked  kindly  to  mark  it.  In  a  book  of  this  kind  to 
notice  an  object  on  a  plate  and  not  to  be  able  to  find  easily  the 
corresponding  portion  of  the  text  is  a  very  trying  experience. 
It  may  be  explained  accordingly  that  each  plate  is  as  a  rule 
inserted  just  before  the  place  where  there  occurs  in  the  text 
the  first  reference  to  any  of  the  objects  figured  on  the  plate, 
and  the  references  to  all  the  objects  thus  figured  will  generally 
speaking  be  found  on  one  of  the  four  succeeding  pages.  The 
plates  are  arranged  to  face  forwards  towards  the  right  hand 
page  of  the  opened  volume,  and  the  reader  who  keeps  his 
finger  in  the  place  where  the  plate  comes  will  find  reference 
back  to  it  quite  simple.  There  are  cases  however  when  an 
object  may  be  described  or  referred  to  not,  or  not  only,  on 
one  of  these  four  pages  but  in  some  other  portion  of  the  text, 
and  in  these  cases  guidance  will  be  found  in  the  List  of 
Illustrations  that  will  be  found  at  the  beginnings  of  Vol.  in 
and  Vol.  iv.  This  List  gives  the  colour  and  half-tone  plates, 
A  to  H,  and  i  to  clviii,  with  certain  needful  details  about 
each  object  illustrated,  including  as  a  rule  its  provenance,  its 
present  habitat,  the  character  and  material  of  the  object,  and 
above  all  its  dimensions,  for  as  explained  in  the  Introductory 
Chapter  (p.  28  f.)  these  cannot  be  safely  deduced  from  the 
illustrations.  These  details  given  in  the  List  render  it  un- 
necessary to  put  upon  the  plate  itself  more  than  its  number, 


PREFATORY  NOTE  ix 

position,  and  title,  with  a  note  below  it  indicating  (i)  the 
approximate  scale  of  the  illustrations,  and  (2)  the  fact,  where 
needful,  that  the  particular  object  was  not  found  in  this 
country  but  is  of  continental  provenance.  Now  in  those 
cases  when  the  descriptions  or  references  in  the  text  are  not 
all  included  within  the  four  pages  following  the  plate,  page 
numbers  will  be  found  in  the  List  appended  to  the  succinct 
notice  of  the  object  and  will  give  the  necessary  guidance. 
In  the  same  way  when  cross  references  are  given  from  one 
part  of  the  text  to  another  an  indication  where  the  notice  of 
a  particular  object  will  be  found  is  in  normal  cases  given  by 
the  number  of  the  plate  on  which  it  is  figured,  but  when  the 
description  does  not  occur  within  the  four  following  pages  the 
correct  page  reference  is  the  one  given  within  the  brackets. 

The  List  of  Illustrations  is  followed  in  Vol.  iv  by  a  second 
giving  in  alphabetical  order  the  chief  Anglo-Saxon  cemeteries 
that  have  yielded  the  specimens  discussed  in  the  volumes. 
The  first  reference  after  the  name  of  the  cemetery  is  to  the 
page  where  it  will  be  found  in  its  order  in  the  geographical 
survey,  and  there  are  added  sometimes  one  or  two  other 
references,  but  there  is  no  attempt  to  refer  to  all  the  places 
where  objects  from  the  particular  cemetery  may  happen  to  be 
mentioned.  The  survey  in  question,  (see  p.  38  f.),  occupies  the 
latter  half  of  the  second  of  these  two  volumes  (p.  589  f.)  and 
is  supplied  with  the  needful  Maps,  so  inserted  as  to  be 
convenient  for  reference  as  the  text  is  perused.  The  blank 
space  of  the  '  guard '  portion  of  the  folding  Map  is  used  for 
necessary  notes  of  explanation,  for  which  see  especially  Map  v 
(p.  589).  The  Maps  are  based  on  the  view  that  the  lines  of 
penetration  of  the  Teutonic  sea  rovers  into  the  country  were 
the  rivers,  and  not,  as  some  have  assumed,  the  Roman  roads, 


x  PREFATORY  NOTE 

and  in  their  preparation  great  assistance  has  been  derived  from 
Petermann's  beautiful  hydrographical  map  of  Great  Britain 
published  in  1868,  while  in  their  execution  much  has  been 
owed  to  the  care  and  expert  knowledge  of  Mr.  A.  Shawe,  on 
Mr.  John  Murray's  staff  at  50  Albemarle  Street,  who  has 
skilfully  carried  out  the  writer's  intentions.  To  Messrs. 
Constable  of  the  Edinburgh  University  Press  who  have  printed 
the  volumes,  and  to  Messrs.  Hislop  and  Day  the  engravers 
the  writer's  cordial  acknowledgements  are  due.  The  colour 
plates,  A  to  H,  are  successful  reproductions  by  the  latter  firm 
from  'Lumiere'  autochrome  transparencies  taken  by  the  writer 
direct  from  the  actual  objects,  and  there  is  thus  a  guarantee 
of  photographic  accuracy  in  details  not  easily  secured  when 
the  plate  is  made  from  a  water  colour  drawing. 

In  books  like  the  present  much  space  is  commonly  occu- 
pied with  expressions  such  as  '  in  the  beginning  of  the  seventh 
century,'  '  of  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century,'  '  fifth  century 
work,'  and  so  on.  In  order  to  save  some  of  this  space  the 
plan  has  been  adopted  of  using  large  Roman  numerals  to  in- 
dicate the  century,  the  appropriate  prepositions  being,  where 
needful,  understood.  Thus  the  last  phrase  would  be  printed 
in  the  text  *  V  work.'  It  would  be  a  great  saving  of  space  in 
archaeological  works,  and  would  really  conduce  to  clearness,  if 
type  were  cut  indicating  by  horizontal  lines  across  the  Roman 
numerals  the  period  of  the  century,  so  that  a  line  across  the 
top  of  the  V  would  signify  the  beginning,  across  the  centre 
the  middle,  of  that  century,  and  so  on.  In  the  meantime  the 
modified  scheme  just  explained  will,  it  is  hoped,  be  easily 
understood  and  accepted  by  the  reader.  In  the  case  of  the 
List  of  Illustrations  referred  to  above,  the  writer,  with  some 
misgiving  and  not  without  a  sense  of  his  temerity,  has  added 


PREFATORY  NOTE  xi 

indications  of  date  to  most  of  the  objects  figured  on  the  plates 
illustrative  of  tomb  furniture.  Such  indications  are  not  mere 
guesses  but  depend  on  the  results  of  comparative  study,  though 
it  would  be  absurd  to  claim  anything  like  infallibility  in  the 
judgements  expressed.  For  the  purpose  in  view  the  centuries 
have  been  divided  into  three  parts,  marked  V  *,  V 2,  V 3,  accord- 
ing to  a  system  adopted  in  Vol.  n  of  this  work  to  show  the 
approximate  date  of  Anglo-Saxon  churches.  This  is  far  better 
than  a  division  into  halves  or  quarters  for  it  is  so  often  found 
needful  to  indicate  a  date  '  about  the  middle '  of  a  century,  or 
1  in  the  first  part '  or  '  the  last  part '  of  it,  and  V 2,  implying 
the  fifteen  years  or  so  on  each  side  of  450  a.d.,  V8  the  last 
third  of  the  century,  are  useful  notifications. 

Another  point  to  which  attention  has  been  paid  is  unifor- 
mity in  giving  information  as  to  the  orientation  of  graves.  The 
direction  of  the  feet  of  a  corpse  is  always  the  one  given,  as  this 
is  the  direction  in  which  the  body  would  be  looking  did  it  rise 
upright  in  the  grave.  It  is  confusing  when  orientation  is  given 
at  one  time  by  the  feet  and  at  another  by  the  head.  '  Right ' 
and  'left'  always  mean  the  right  and  left  of  the  spectator, 
save  of  course  in  phrases  like  '  the  right  hand  of  the  figure.' 
The  word  '  cinerary,'  as  applied  to  an  urn,  is  never  used 
except  there  is  direct  evidence  that  the  vessel  actually  contained 
calcined  human  bones.  In  the  Index,  which  is  placed  at  the 
close  of  Vol.  iv.  the  special  entries  are  in  many  cases  grouped 
under  more  general  headings,  so  that,  for  example,  '  Shield ' 
does  not  appear  under  '  S  '  but  as  a  sub-entry  under  '  Arms.' 
Other  comprehensive  headings  are  *  Fibulae,'  '  Ornament,' 
c  Technical  processes,'  etc.  In  the  references  the  often-used 
abbreviation  Jlrch.  Journ.  stands  for  the  Journal  of  the  Royal 
Archaeological  Institute  ;    Ass.  for  the  Journal  of  the  British 


xii  PREFATORY  NOTE 

Archaeological  Association  ;  Handbuch  for  Professor  L. 
Lindenschmit's  Handbuch  der  T>eutschen  Alterthumskunde ; 
die  Alterthumer  der  Merovingischen  Zeit,  Braunschweig, 
1880-89. 

Acknowledgements  of  help  received  during  the  progress 
of  this  work  are  owed  to  proprietors  of  private  collections  of 
Germanic  objects,  to  the  councils  of  archaeological  societies, 
and  to  the  custodians  of  public  and  semi-public  museums  both 
at  home  and  abroad.  Due  thanks  are  paid  in  the  notes  to  the 
text  to  the  numerous  private  owners  who  have  accorded  to 
the  writer  access  to  their  treasures  with  permission  to  photo- 
graph for  reproduction  selected  objects.  The  Council  of  the 
Society  of  Antiquaries  of  London  is  hereby  thanked  for  the 
kind  permission  to  make  use  of  one  or  two  of  the  illustrations 
contained  in  the  Troceedings  of  the  Society,  and  other  anti- 
quarian societies  such  as  those  of  Kent,  Sussex,  Essex,  Wilts, 
Burton-on-Trent,  Newcastle-on-Tyne,  and  York,  have  aided 
the  work  in  kindred  fashion.  To  the  Keeper  and  the  Staff 
of  the  Department  of  Mediaeval  Antiquities  in  the  British 
Museum  the  writer  offers  the  most  cordial  expression  of  his 
gratitude.  Among  the  many  individual  custodians  of  collec- 
tions who  have  furnished  valuable  information  as  to  objects 
in  their  care,  a  special  word  of  thanks  is  due  to  Mr.  Reginald 
Smith  of  the  British  Museum,  also  to  Baron  von  Hiigel  of  the 
Cambridge  Museum  of  Archaeology,  Mr.  Thurlow  Leeds  of  the 
Ashmolean  at  Oxford,  Mr.  Entwistle  of  the  Liverpool  Museum, 
and  particularly  to  Mr.  Hubert  Elgar  of  Maidstone,  who  has 
furnished  information  as  well  as  photographs  of  much  value. 

In  regard  to  public  museums,  the  writer  has  shared  the 
experience  of  all  workers  in  the  field  of  antiquities  in  that  he 


PREFATORY  NOTE  xiii 

has  everywhere,  abroad  as  well  as  at  home,  been  welcomed 
and  aided  in  his  work  in  the  spirit  of  a  common  interest  in 
scientific  studies  which  overleaps  all  racial  or  national  bound- 
aries. Anglo-Saxon  art,  it  must  be  remembered,  is  a  branch 
of  Germanic  art,  and  has  its  affinities  in  the  Alamannic  and 
Gothic  as  well  as  in  the  Frankish  and  Lombard  regions  of 
Europe,  so  that  it  cannot  be  properly  studied  without  refer- 
ence to  collections  on  the  Continent.  These  chapters  are 
published  at  a  time  when  the  principal  nations  of  north- 
western Europe  are  engaged  in  bitter  strife,  but  they  were 
written  and  partly  printed  when  in  the  things  of  the  intellect 
all  these  peoples  formed  one  great  community  throughout 
which  there  ruled  a  spirit  of  devotion  to  the  common  task 
of  the  advancement  of  knowledge.  Hence  in  spite  of  all 
that  is  happening  at  the  present  crisis,  it  is  a  pleasure  as  well 
as  an  act  of  justice  to  acknowledge  the  kindness  shown 
by  the  custodians  of  European  museums  where  Germanic 
art  is  to  be  studied,  in  Vienna,  Budapest,  Munich,  Mainz, 
Berlin,  as  well  as  in  Petrograd,  Kiev,  Paris,  Brussels,  Namur, 
or  in  Rome,  Bucharest,  Stockholm  and  Leiden.  The  trea- 
sures of  these  collections  have  been  opened  even  more  freely 
than  those  of  our  own  British  Museum,  for  no  hint  of  a 
charge  for  the  privilege  of  photographing  has  ever  been  made 
in  any  one  of  them. 

These  personal  reminiscences  cannot  end  without  a  pious 
tribute  to  the  august  Manes  of  two  scholars  to  whom  the 
writer  owes  much  and  who  passed  away  before  the  present 
evil  times — the  late  Professor  Hampel  of  Budapest,  and 
Robert  von  Schneider  of  the  Kunsthistorisches  Hof-Museum 

at  Vienna. 

G.  B.  B. 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 
IN    VOLUME    III 

COLOUR   PLATES 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

A.  THE  KINGSTON  BROOCH  ....      Frontispiece  Vol.  in. 

I,  vn  *,  The  '  Kingston'  brooch,  a  disc  fibula  of  gold  inlaid  with  garnets 

and  glass  pastes,  diameter  3$  in.,  thickness  at  the  rim  £  in.,  thick- 
ness in  the  middle  (not  counting  the  central  boss)  $  in.,  found  in 
1771  at  Kingston,  Kent,  Museum  at  Liverpool  (p.  511  f.). 

II,  Portion  of  the  face  of  the  brooch  enlarged  about  2 \  linear. 

B.  PENDANTS,  BEADS,  BUCKLES,  ETC 353 

I,  vn  2,  Necklet  found  at  Sarre,  Kent,  with  central  pendant  in  mosaic 

glass,  1  in.  in  diameter,  and  gold  coins  imitated  from  Roman  and 
Frankish  solidi,  date  second  quarter  of  vn,  British  Museum  (pp. 
444,450- 

II,  vn,  Chain  of  beads,  with  inlaid  pendant  and   looped  gold  coins, 

Alamannic,  Museum  at  Munich  (pp.  431,  451). 

III,  vn,  Inlaid   pendants  and   looped  gold  coins  from  King's  Field, 
Faversham,  Kent,  about  |  full  size,  British  Museum  (p.  547). 

IV,  From  the  left,  vn  *,  one  of  a  pair  of  bronze  gilt  clasps,  4^  in.  long 

over  all,  from  the  Taplow  Barrow  (p.  362);  above  in  the  middle, 
vn1,  golden  buckle,  ij  in.  long,  from  King's  Field,  Faversham, 
Kent  (pp.  362,  542)  ;  below  in  the  middle,  vn,  bronze  and  gold 
buckle,  same  provenance  (p.  352)  j  on  the  right,  vn  l,  golden  buckle 
with  garnet  inlays,  4  in.  long,  from  the  Taplow  Barrow  (p.  352), 
all  in  the  British  Museum. 


xvi  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


HALF   TONE   PLATES 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

I.  ROMAN  AND  GERMANIC  COINS  CONNECTED  WITH 

EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  ISSUES  ....       59 

(From  examples  in  the  British  Museum.) 

1,  1',  3,  Roman  bronze  coins  of  the  Constantinian  period. 

2,  2',  Gold  solidus  of  Magnus  Maximus,  struck  in  London. 

4,  4',  Gold  solidus  struck  by  Theodebert  1,   King  of  the  Austrasian 

Franks  (534-548),  Prou,  Les  Monnaies  Merovingiennes,  no.  39. 

5,  Reverse  of  similar  gold  solidus,  Prou,  no.  56. 

6,  Bronze  piece,  struck  by  Theodahad,  King  of  the  Ostrogoths,  c.  536  A.D. 

II.  MEROVINGIAN      SOLIDI      AND      TRIENTES,     AND 

GALLO-BRITISH    COINS    FOUNDED    ON    GREEK 

EXAMPLES 65 

(Nos.  1  to  15'  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale,  Paris  ;  nos.  16  to  20 
in  the  British  Museum.) 

1,  Prou,  Les  Monnaies  Merovingiennes,  1368.  2,  Prou,  177.  3,  Prou, 
198.  4,  Prou,  1053.  5,  Prou,  1107.  6,  Prou,  1928.  7,  Prou, 
1921.  8,  Prou,  1269.  9,  Prou,  1 05 1.  10,  Prou,  2234.  11,  Prou, 
2818.    i2,Prou,272.    i3,Prou,2873.    i4,Prou,277.    i5,Prou,57o. 

16,  Gold  stater  of  Philip  of  Macedon. 

17-20,  Degraded  imitations  of  the  types  on  the  above  in  the  Gallo- 
British  coinage. 

III.  THE  CRONDALL  HOARD,  OBJECTS  FROM  FRISIAN 

TERPEN,  ETC 69 

1,  Imitated  gold  solidus  with  runic  inscription,  British  Museum. 

2,  Gold  trinkets  with  garnet  inlays  found  with  the  Crondall  hoard,  Lord 

Grantley's  Collection. 

3,  View  of  Frisian  terp  in  course  of  demolition. 

4,  Gold  objects  found  in  a  Frisian  terp,  Museum  at  Leeuwarden,  Friesland. 
5-8,  Gold  coins  from  the  Crondall  hoard,  Lord  Grantley's  Collection. 

IV.  SCEAT   COINS  IN  BRITISH   AND   DUTCH   COLLEC- 

TIONS      79 

I,  British  Museum,  sceattas,  Mercia.     2,  Sir  Arthur  Evans'  Collection. 
3,  British  Museum,  sceattas,  Mercia.     4,  Do,  do.,  do. 

5,  Lord  Grantley's  Collection.     6,  Leeuwarden,  Hallum  find. 

7,  Hunterian  Collection,  Glasgow.     8,  Sir  Arthur  Evans. 
9,  Leeuwarden,  Hallum  find.     10,  Hunterian. 

II,  Mejuffr.  de  Man's  Collection,  Middelburg,  Holland. 

12,  Broadstairs,  Kent. 

(The  above  are  all  obverse  and  reverse.) 

13,  British  Museum,  sceattas,  no.     14,  Hunterian. 
15,  British  Museum,  sceattas,  92.     16,  Do.,  do.,  115. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xvii 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

V.  SCEATTAS,  ENGLISH  AND  DUTCH,  WITH  OBJECTS 

OF  TOMB  FURNITURE  FOR  COMPARISON   .         .81 

I,  Lord  Grantley's  Collection.     2,  Middelburg  Museum. 

3,  Mejuffr.  de  Man's  Collection,  Middelburg. 

4,  British  Museum,  sceattas,  77.     5,  Lord  Grantley's  Collection.     6,  Sir 

Arthur  Evans'  Collection,  Youlbury,  Berks.     7,  Formerly  in  Mr. 
Carlyon-Britton's  Collection.     8,  British  Museum,  sceattas,  78. 

9,  Mejuffr.  de  Man's  Collection.     10,  From  the  Hallum  find,  at  Leeu- 

warden,  Holland. 

I I,  vii1,  Upper  plate  of  applied  brooch,  1^  in.  in  diameter,  from  St.  John's 

College  Cricket  Field,  Cambridge,  Cambridge  Museum  (p.  106). 

12,  v3,  Bronze  buckle,  iT5^  in.  wide,  found  with   skeleton   at  Royston 

Heath,  Cambs,  do.  (p.  107). 

VI.  SCEATTAS,  ENGLISH  AND  DUTCH        .        .         .         .85 
1,  Hunterian  Collection,  Glasgow.     2,  Mejuffr.  de  Man,  Middelburg, 

Holland.     3,  British  Museum,  sceattas,  160. 
4,  Do.,  do.,    151.     5,   Hunterian.      6,  British   Museum,  sceattas,    106. 
7,  Lord  Grantley's  Collection.     8,  British  Museum,  sceattas,   189. 
9,  The  Hague,  Coin  Cabinet. 

10,  Formerly  in  Mr.  Carlyon-Britton's  Collection. 

11,  Hunterian.     12,  British  Museum,  Montague  Collection. 

13,  British  Museum,  sceattas,  193.     14,  Do.,  do.,  198. 
15,  Do.,  do.,  200.     16,  Do.,  do.,  182.     17,  Do.,  do.,  199. 
18,  Do.,  do.,  170.     19,  Mr.  Carlyon-Britton.     20,  Do. 
21,  British  Museum,  sceattas,  12. 

VII.  SCEATTAS,  AND  A  ROMAN  PROTOTYPE  ...       89 

I,  Leeuwarden   Museum.     2,  Do.     3,  British   Museum,  sceattas,    183. 

4,  Do.,  do.,  171.     5,  Do.,  do.,  187. 

6,  Sir  Arthur  Evans'  Collection.     7,  Do.     8,  Hunterian  Collection,  Glas- 
gow.    9,  Middelburg  Museum,  Holland. 

10,  Mejuffr.  de  Man's  Collection,  Middelburg. 

II,  Middelburg  Museum.     12,  Leeuwarden  Museum. 
13,  Do.      14,  Do.      15,  Do.     16,  Middelburg  Museum. 
17,  Do.     1 8,  Do.     19,  The  Hague,  Coin  Cabinet. 

20,  Middelburg  Museum. 


VIII.  ENGLISH  SCEAT  COINS  WITH  ARTISTIC  TYPES  . 

1,  British  Museum,  sceattas,  151.  2,  Do.,  do.,  153.  3,  Formerly  in 
Mr.  Carlyon-Britton's  Collection.  4,  Do.  5,  British  Museum, 
sceattas,  154.      6,  Hunterian  Collection,  Glasgow. 

7,  British  Museum,  sceattas,  191.     8,  Do.,  do.,  157. 

9,  Do.,  do.,  189.     10,  Do.,  do.,  115.     11,  Do.  do.,  170. 

12,  Do.,  do.,  116.  13,  Do.,  do.,  184.  14,  Lord  Grantley's  Collection. 
15,  Hunterian.  16,  Sir  Arthur  Evans'  Collection.  17,  Hunterian. 
18,  Reverse  of  coin  of  ^thelberht  of  East  Anglia,  British  Museum, 
East  Anglia,  2.  19,  Hunterian.  20,  Bodleian  Library  Collection. 
21,  Reverse  of  bronze  coin  of  Constantine,  British  Museum. 
Ill  b 


99 


xviii  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

IX.  OBJECTS  ILLUSTRATING  THE  CONNECTION  BE- 
TWEEN SCEAT  COINS,  TOMB  FURNITURE,  AND 
CARVED  STONES 103 

1,  4,  V3,  Small  cast  bronze  objects  called  'hinged  handles,'  natural  size 

c.  1  \  in.  long,  with  birds  and  with  a  leaf  ornament ;  1,  from  Wang- 
ford,  Suffolk,  4,  from  Lakenheath,  Suffolk,  Museum  at  Cambridge 
(pp.  105,  107,  in). 

2,  v3,  Outline  of  leopard  (?)  from  a  Roman  original  stamped  on  a  bronze 

pail  from  Chessell  Down,  Isle  of  Wight,  figured  postea,  PI.  cxix,  6 
(p.  475),  British  Museum. 

3,  Cast  bronze  medallion  with  hole  in  rim,  no  attachments  at  back,  i|  in. 

in  diameter,  with  full-face  head  in  debased  Roman  style,  found, 
probably  with  Anglo-Saxon  relics,  at  Princethorpe,  Warwickshire, 
Bloxam  bequest,  Art  Museum,  Rugby. 

5,  Head   of  a  wolf  (?)  from   carved   stone   of  about   x  at  Stanwick, 

N.  Riding,  Yorkshire. 

6,  vii  3,  Half  of  a  clasp  (?)  in  gilded  silver  with  fantastic  animal  in  open 

work,  1  in.  long,  from  Gilton,  Kent,  see  Faussett,  Inventorium 
Sepulchrale,  p.  16,  Museum  at  Liverpool  (pp.  107,  in,  362). 

7,  vi1,  Cast  bronze  pendant,  ij  in.  across,  with  figure  of  winged  creature 

in  relief,  partly  mutilated,  from  Saxonbury  near  Lewes,  Museum  at 
Lewes. 

8,  vi1,  Part  of  the  bronze  mounting  of  a  bucket  representing  a  quadru- 

ped, 2^  in.  long,  from  Bidford,  Warwickshire,  Museum  at  Worcester. 

9,  Part  of  the  east  face  of  the  Bewcastle  Cross,  Cumberland. 

10,  Merovingian  silver  coin,  de  Belfort,  no.  6217,  with  rings  near  ends  of 

cross-arms. 
u,Sceat  coin  with  the  rings  attached  to  the  ends  of  the  cross-arms, 
Hunterian  Museum,  Glasgow. 

X.  EARLY    CHRISTIAN     OBJECTS    IN    ANGLO-SAXON 

GRAVES ■        .        .115 

1,  iv,  Bronze  mount  of  drinking  horn  found  in   A.-S.  warrior's  grave 

close  to  Roman  cemetery  at  Strood,  Kent,  diameter  3  in.,  see 
Collectanea  Antigua,  11,  pi.  xxxvi,  Liverpool  Museum  (p.  462). 

2,  2,  vii 2,  Silver  crosses;  from  Kingston,  Kent,  see  In<ventorium  Sepul- 

chrale, pi.  iv,  21,  \  in.  wide,  Liverpool  Museum. 

3,  vii8,  Silver  cross  from  Chartham  Down,  Kent,  /«*/.  Sep.,  pi.  xi,  17, 

1^  in.  high,  Liverpool  Museum. 

4,  vii  2,  Gold  cross  from  a  barrow  on  Winster  Moor,  Derbyshire,  see 

Nenia  Britannica,  pp.  67-8,  i§  in.  high,  Sheffield  Museum. 

5,  vii 2,  Cross-headed  pin  for  the  hair,  bronze,  from  Breach  Down,  Kent 

(p.  109),  4^  in.  long,  British  Museum. 

6,  6,  vii  *,   Scutcheon   mounts  of  bronze   bowl,  diameter   i§   in.,   from 

King's  Field,  Faversham,  Kent  (p.  473  f.),  British  Museum. 

7,  vii 2,  Bracteate-like   pendant  from  Sibertswold,  Kent,  see  Ittv.  Sep., 

pi.  iv,  22,  ijk  in.  diam.,  Liverpool  Museum. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xix 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

XI.  EARLY  CHRISTIAN  OBJECTS,  COFFIN  RIVETS,  ETC.     117 

1,  vi 8,  Gold  inlaid  pendant  from  Sibertswold,  Kent,  Inv.  Sep.,  pi.  iv,  13, 

i^fc  diam.,  Liverpool  Museum  (p.  426). 

2,  vii1,  Gold  inlaid   pendant   from   a   barrow  at  Uncleby,  Yorkshire, 

}§  in.  diam.,  York  Museum  (p.  805). 

3,  Pewter   chalice   from   an    Anglo-Saxon   grave    in   the   King's  Road 

cemetery,  Reading,  4  in.  high,  Reading  Museum. 

4,  Urn,  2|  in.  high,  with  stone  that  covered  it,  from  Kelvedon,  Essex, 

Colchester  Museum  (pp.  147,  598). 

5,  vii  2,  Fibula  from  Suffolk  in  Mr.  S.  G.  Fenton's  Collection,  London. 

6,  Coffin  rivets,  etc.,  from  Bifrons,  Kent,  Museum  of  Kent  Archaeological 

Society,  Maidstone  (p.  150). 

XII.  SKELETON     OF    ANGLO-SAXON      LADY      FROM 

FOLKESTONE,  FOLKESTONE  MUSEUM  .        .151 

XIII.  A  CROUCHING  SKELETON,  ETC.       .        .  .     153 

1,  Skeleton  in  crouching  position,  from  'Danes  Graves'  near  Driffield, 

Yorkshire. 

2,  Plate  1  from  Douglas's  Nenia  Britannica  (p.  126). 

3,  Head   of    fibula  from    Kempston,   Beds,   showing   traces   of  fabric, 

British  Museum,  much  enlarged  (p.  152). 

XIV.  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY  AT  SAFFRON  WALDEN, 

ESSEX 155 

XV.  FOLKESTONE  CEMETERY,  KENT         .         .         .        .     i57 

1,  View  of  portion  of  cemetery  excavated   1907-19 10  on  Dover    Hill, 

Folkestone. 

2,  Part  of  skeleton  in  Folkestone  Museum. 

XVI.  EVIDENCE   OF   SUN  WORSHIP,  AND   LATE   TOMB 

FURNITURE 171 

1,  Model  Sun  Chariot  with  Sun  Disc,  of  the  Bronze  Age,  at  Copenhagen 

(p.  162). 

2,  viii  or  ix,  Necklet  with   pendants  of  late  date  from  Saffron  Walden 

cemetery,  Essex,  Saffron  Walden  Museum. 

3,  viii,  Cast  bronze  buckle  of  late  style,  Frankish,  4I  in.  long,  Rouen 

Museum. 

4,  viii  or  ix,  Golden  brooch  of  Viking  period,  from  Hornelund,  Varde, 

Jutland,  Museum  at  Copenhagen. 

5,  ix2,  Bronze  pin-head  of  late  style,  from  Talnotrie,  Newton  Stewart, 

Scotland,  1  in.  diam.,  Edinburgh  Museum  of  Antiquities. 


xx  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

XVII.  OBJECTS    AND    PROCESSES    NOT    REPRESENTED 

IN  ANGLO-SAXON  GRAVES 175 

1,  vii  3,  Large  iron  silver  plated  buckle,  probably  Burgundian,  from 
Fetigny,  Switzerland,  total  length  c.  15  in.,  Museum  at  Fribourg, 
Switzerland  (p.  174). 

2, 'Placage'  in  silver  over  iron,  Museum  at  Namur,  Belgium,  much 
enlarged. 

3,  Roman  scabbard  inlaid  with  silver,  Museum  at  Mainz,  Germany. 

4,  Iron  buckle  with  silver  inlays,  Frankish,  Museum  at  Mainz. 

5,  Silver  plating  on  iron,  a  fragment  from  the  King's  Field,  Faversham, 

Kent,  British  Museum,  c.  2  in.  by  i|  in. 

XVIII.  ANGLO-SAXON    SKELETONS   WITH   TOMB   FUR- 

NITURE         177 

1,  vi1,  Skeleton  found  at  Shepperton  Gravel  Pit,  Middlesex,  in  1868. 

Objects  in  Guildford  Museum. 

2,  Part  of  skeleton  found  in  a  barrow  in  the  churchyard  of  Ogbourne  St. 

Andrew,  Wilts.  Iron  mounts  of  coffin  remain,  see  Wilts  Magazine, 
xxii,  345,  Devizes  Museum  (p.  150). 

3,  vi,  Female   skeleton  from    Stapenhill,   Staffordshire,   with   urn,   two 

brooches,  necklace,  spindle  whorl,  buckle  for  girdle,  girdle  hanger, 
see  Trans.  Burton-on-Trent  Nat.  Hist,  and  Archaeological  Soc,  1,  1 56  f., 
Museum  of  the  Society,  Burton-on-Trent. 

XIX.  ANGLO-SAXON  TOMBSTONES 181 

1,  Stone  tombstone  found  at  Sandwich  c.  1830,  16  in.  high,  6  in.  square 

at  top,  with  Runic  inscription  RJEHJEBUL,  Canterbury  Museum. 

2,  Head  of  wooden  coffin  hollowed  from  tree  trunk,  and  wooden  post  at 

head,  2  ft.  8  in.  high  by  9  in.  square  at  the  base,  from  Selby,  York- 
shire, see  Philosophical  Society's  Report  for  1876,  the  Society's 
Museum,  York  (p.  180). 

XX.  ANGLO-SAXON  SKULLS 185 

1,  Anglian  skull  from  Londesborough,  East  Riding,  Yorks,  found  with 

Anglo-Saxon  fibula,  beads,  etc.,  Museum  at  York. 

2,  Anglian  skull  from  Hauxton,  Cambridgeshire,  Anatomical  Museum, 

Cambridge. 

3,  Skull  found  at  Street  Ashton,  near  the  Fosse   Way,  Warwickshire, 

with  the  open-socketed  spear  head  shown  with  it,  Art  Museum, 
Rugby. 

4,  West  Saxon  skull  from  Harnham  Hill,  Wilts,  Anatomical  Museum, 

Cambridge. 

5,  Jutish  skull  from  Ozengell,  Thanet,  Kent,  as  above. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xxi 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

XXI.  ANGLO-SAXON  HELMET,  ETC 195 

1,  vii2,    Framework  of  helmet  from    Benty   Grange,   Derbyshire,  see 

Bateman,  Ten  Years*  Diggings,  p.  28  f.,  Sheffield  Museum. 

2,  in3,  Shield  (restored)  from  Thorsberg  Moss,  Schleswig,  Copenhagen 

Museum. 

3,  Ornamented  shield  boss  from  Dietersheim,  Rhenish-Hesse,  Museum  at 

Mainz  (p.  199). 

XXII.  UMBOS,  ETC.,  OF  SHIELDS 197 

1,  Handle  of  shield  from  Pry,  Belgium,  Namur  Museum. 

2,  Three  umbos  from  Buttsole,  Eastry,  Kent,  central  one  3I  in.  high, 

Maidstone  Museum. 

3,  Shield  handle  from  Colchester,  Essex,  Colchester  Museum. 

4,  vi  *,  Umbo  from  Stowting,  Kent,  Stowting  Vicarage. 

XXIII.  UMBOS 199 

1,  vi,  From  Sittingbourne,  Kent,  7^  in.  high,  \\  in.  external  diameter, 

Dover  Museum. 

2,  vi,  Broken  umbo  from  Croydon,  Surrey,  thickness  of  metal  ^  in.  to 

jJg-  in.,   Grange  Wood  Museum,   Thornton   Heath,   by  Croydon, 
Surrey. 

3,  VI,  Umbo  of  peculiar  construction  from  Farthingdown,  Surrey,  7  in. 

high,  Ashmolean  Museum,  Oxford. 

4,  VI  \  Umbo  from  Fairford,  Gloucestershire,  Ashmolean. 

5,  6,  Umbos  from  Nienbiktel  and  Boltersen,  in  the  Elbe-mouth  region, 

Museum  at  Liineburg. 
7,  Umbos  from  British  camp  at  Hunsbury,  Northamptonshire,  see  Sir 
Henry  Dryden  in  Ass.  Soc.  Reports,  1885,  Northampton  Museum. 

XXIV.  APPLIQUES  OF  SHIELDS,  ETC 203 

1,  Bronze  applique  in  form  of  fish,  2|  in.  long,  from  Suffolk,  Fenton 

Collection,  London  (p.  202). 

2,  Appliques  in  cast  bronze,  parcel  gilt,  from   Buttsole,  Eastry,  Kent, 

Maidstone  Museum. 

3,  One  of  above  on  larger  scale,  original  c.  2  in.  long. 

4,  vi  3,  Applique  in  cast  bronze,  2^  in.  long,  see  J.  Brent,  Antiquities  in 

the  Museum  at  Canterbury,  p.  46,  Canterbury  Museum  (p.  202). 

5,  Back  of  applique  from  Buttsole,  showing  mode  of  fastening,  enlarged 

nearly  twice  linear,  clear  length  of  shank  of  rivets  £  in.,  Maidstone 
Museum. 

6,  vi1,  Shoe-shaped  stud,  enlarged,  from  Kent  (p.  359). 

XXV.  ANGLO-SAXON  SWORDS  (SPATHAS)  .        .        .209 

1,  vi *,  Spathas  from    Mitcham,  Surrey,  in  the  Collection  of  Captain 
Bidder,  Mitcham. 


xxii  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE  AT 

2,  vi x,  Spathas  from  Saxonbury,  Lewes,  Sussex,  Lewes  Museum. 

3,  vi 2,  Spatha  from  Croydon,  Surrey,  length  2  ft.  9  in.,  Grange  Wood 

Museum,  Thornton  Heath  (p.  219). 

4,  vi  2,  Spathas  from  Gilton,  Kent,  Liverpool  Museum. 

5,  vi2,  Spatha  from  Broadstairs,  Kent,  at  Offices  of  Local  Board,  Broad- 

stairs. 

6,  iv,  Swords  from  Nydam  Moss,  Schleswig,  Kiel  Museum. 

7,  Damascening  on  above. 

8,  Roman  sword  from  Newstead,  Roxburghshire  (p.  217),  length  17  in., 

length  of  grip  3J  in.,  Edinburgh  Museum  of  Antiquities  (p.  217). 

9,  vii3,  Sword  hilt  from  Cumberland,  British  Museum  (p.  217). 

10,  ix  or  x,  Viking  sword,  York  Museum  (p.  218). 


XXVI.  SWORD  HILTS 219 

1,  vii  or  viii,  Scramasax  from  Lussy,  Switzerland,  blade  12  in.  long, 

handle  with  wooden  grip  preserved  5!  in.  long,  Fribourg  Museum, 
Switzerland  (p.  218). 

2,  V  3,  Sword  hilt  from  Shepperton,  Middlesex,  tang  c.  \\  in.  long,  iron 

pommel  pierced  for  end  of  tang,  Guildford  Castle  Museum. 

3,  vi3,    Bronze    sword    pommel    from    Bifrons,    Maidstone,    K.  A.  S. 

Collection. 

4,  vi 2,  '  Cocked  hat '  pommel  from  near  Droxford,  Hants,  Winchester 

Museum. 

5,  VI  3,  Silver  gilt  sword  hilt  from  Gilton,  Kent,  length  of  grip  3§  in.,  see 

Akerman,  Pagan  Saxondom,  pi.  xxiv,  Liverpool  Museum. 
6>  7,  vi *,  Bronze  '  cocked  hat '  sword  pommel  from   Alfriston,  Sussex, 

Lewes  Museum. 
8,   9,  vi1,  Bronze  'cocked  hat'  pommel  from   Bowcombe  Down,  Isle 

of  Wight,  Carisbrooke  Castle  Museum. 


XXVII.  SWORD  HILTS,  Continued 22 

1,  vii,  Ornamented  sword  pommels  from  Sweden,  Stockholm  Museum. 

2,  Vii,  Enriched  sword  hilt  from  Bildso  by  Slagelse,  Denmark,  see  Sophus 

Muller,  Nordische  Altertumskunde,  11,  190,  Copenhagen  Museum. 

3,  vii  2  or  3,  Sword  hilt  from  Combe,  Kent,  see  Akerman,  Pagan  Saxon- 

dom, pi.  xxiv,  Saffron  Walden  Museum. 

4,  Cocked  hat  pommel  with  ring  arrangement  from  Faversham,  Kent, 

in  British  Museum. 

5,  vi  *,  Button  of  sword  knot  (?)  from  Brighthampton,  Oxon,  Ashmolean 

Museum. 

6,  vi ',  '  Cocked  hat '  pommel  from  above,  ibid. 

7,  vi  *,  Top  of  scabbard  of  sword  from  above,  ibid. 

8,  vi  *,  Ornamented  silver  chape  of  scabbard  of  above,  ibid. 

9,  vi,  Sword  from  Croydon,  in  British  Museum,  36^  in.  long  over  all 

(p.  210). 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xxiii 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

XXVIII.  SCRAMASAXES,  KNIVES,  ETC.         .         .        .        .227 

1,  vii  or  viii,  Cutlass  of  abnormal  form  from  Saffron  Walden,  10^  in. 

long,  Saffron  Walden  Museum,  Essex. 

2,  vii,  Long-handled  scramasax  from  Snodland,  Kent,  total  length  20 

in.,  length  of  handle  8  in.,  Rochester  Museum. 

3,  Two-edged   dagger   of    exceptional   form,    from    Cookham    by   the 

Thames,  blade  9  in.  long,  Reading  Museum  (p.  231). 

4,  vii,  Short  heavy  scramasax  from  Kent,  9  in.  long,  Maidstone  Museum. 

5,  and   9,  Curved    knives  of  Romano-British  form,  about  4  in.   long, 

from    Winklebury    excavations    in    Cranborne    Chase,    Rushmore 
Museum,  Farnham,  Dorset. 

6,  'Langsax'  from  Folkestone  cemetery,  15  in.  long,  with  iron  pommel 

in  same  piece  with  tang,  Folkestone  Museum  (p.  218). 

7,  vii,  Full-sized   scramasax   from    Uncleby,  Yorkshire,  23I  in.  long, 

York  Museum. 

8,  11-18,  Iron  knives  from  various  localities.     No.  13  is  6  in.  long. 

10,  x,  Knife-scramasax  from  the  City  of  London,  found  with  coins  of 
-#sthelred  II,  979-1016,  length  13  in.,  British  Museum. 

1 9,  vii,  Long-handled  scramasax  with  iron  pommel,  from  Purton,  Wilts, 

c.  23  in.  long,  Devizes  Museum. 

20,  vii,  Scramasax  of  exceptional  size,  from   Kidlington,  Oxfordshire. 

Length   31   in.,  greatest  width  2^  in.,  thickness  at  back  ^  in., 
British  Museum. 
[The  relative  sizes  as  figured  are  approximately  correct  except  in  the  case 
of  the  longer  pieces,  Nos.  2,  6,  7,  19  and  20,  which  should  be  about 
half  as  large  again.] 

XXIX.  AXE     HEADS,     ANGLO-SAXON    AND     CONTIN- 
ENTAL       231 

1,  v,  Frankish  axe  head  (francisca)  with  part  of  handle  remaining,  from 

Nesle  Hodeng,  Rouen  Museum. 

2,  v,  Francisca  from  Martin  Eglise,  7  in.  from  back  to  front,  Rouen 

Museum. 

3,  Iron  axe  head  with  long  handle  in  one  piece  with  it,  length  17  in.  over 

all,  found  with  two  iron  spear  heads  in  a  Roman  villa  at  Alresford, 
Hants,  Colchester  Museum. 

4,  vi,  Axe  head  of  Frankish  form,  from  Hob  Hill  by  Saltburn-on-Sea, 

Yorkshire,  8  in.  from  back  to  front,  Saltburn-on-Sea. 

5,  vi,    Do.,    from    Mitchell's    Hill,    Icklingham,    Suffolk,    Colchester 

Museum. 

6,  vi,  Do.,  from  Croydon,  Grange  Wood  Museum. 

7,  vi,  Do.,  see  Coll.  Ant.,  11,  pi.  L,  7,  Maidstone  Museum. 

8,  Diminutive  axe  head,  3  in.  long,  found  at  Little  Kimble,  Bucks,  see 

Records  of  Buckinghamshire,  11,  48,  Aylesbury  Museum. 

9,  vi  (?),  Axe  head  of  different  form,  Rouen  Museum. 

10,  Axe  head  from  Aldworth,  Berks,  cutting  edge  more  than  9  in.  long, 

Reading  Museum. 


xxiv  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

ii,  Vs,  Axe  head  found  in  the  tomb  of  Childeric,  7|  in.  long,  Biblio- 

theque  Nationale,  Paris. 
12,   Axe  head  of  peculiar  form  found  at   Bifrons,  Kent;   Maidstone, 

K.  A.  S.  Collection. 

XXX.  AXE  HEADS,  ETC 233 

1,  Axe  head  in  Oldenburg  Museum,  of  local  provenance,  cutting  edge 

10 J  in.  long. 

2,  VI 2,  Axe  head  from  Chapel  Farm,  Horton  Kirby,  Kent,  s|  in.  long, 

Maidstone  Museum. 

3,  Axe  head  of  drop-bladed  type,  from  bed  of  Thames  by  Reading, 

Reading  Museum. 

4,  X,  Axe  head  of  characteristic  'Viking'  form,  7  in.  long,  iron,  with 

inlaid  silver  ornamentation  and  gilding,  from  Mammen  by  Viborg, 
Denmark,  see  Worsaae,  '  La  Sepulture  de  Mammen,'  in  Memoires  de 
la  Soc.  Roy.  des  Ant.  du  Nord,  1869,  p.  227,  Copenhagen  Museum. 

5,  v  and  vi,  Pins  for  the  hair  with   axe-head  terminations,  Frankish, 

Museum  at  Namur. 

XXXI.  SPEAR  HEADS 235 

1,  vi,  Group  of  spear  heads  from  High  Down,  Sussex.     The  longest 

measures  17  in.,  Ferring  Grange. 

2,  VI,  Spear  heads  from  Kent ;  a,  from  Sarre  at  Maidstone,  18  in.  long; 

the  others  from  Kingston  at  Liverpool. 

3,  VI,  Group  from  Little  Wilbraham,  Cambs.     The  longest  measures  21 

in.,  at  Audley  End. 

4,  vi,  Group  from  Darlington.     The  longest  is  16  in.  long,  Mr.  Ed. 

Wooler's  Collection,  Darlington. 

5,  V3,  Spear  head  of  Childeric,  9  in.  long,  Bibliotheque  Nationale,  Paris. 

XXXII.  THE  ANGON,  ARROW  HEADS,  ETC.       .        .         .237 

1,  Arrow  heads  from  Buttsole,  Eastry,  Kent.     The  lengths  vary  from 

4^  in.  to  z\  in.,  Maidstone  Museum  (pp.  203,  242,  708). 

2,  3,  Open   and   closed   spear   sockets    from   Saxby,   Leicestershire,    at 

Midland  Institute,  Derby  (p.  235). 

4,  v3,  Spear  head  with   closed   socket,  from  early  burial  at  Brighton, 

Brighton  Museum  (pp.  235,  682). 

5,  Arrow  head  from  Kent,  Douglas  Collection,  Ashmolean  (p.  242). 

6,  Arrow  head  from  Chesterton  Camp,  Warwickshire,  Warwick  Museum. 

7,  Do.  from  churchyard  at  Radford  Semele,  Warwickshire  (mediaeval  ?), 

Warwick  Museum. 

8,  vi,  Three  iron  objects  from  Bifrons.     The  barbed  spear  head  is  9^ 

in.  long,  Bifrons  House. 

9,  Spear  head  from  Suffolk,  in  Pitt  Rivers  Museum,  Farnham,  Dorset. 

10,  Spear  head  from  Fairford,  Gloucestershire,  Ashmolean. 

11,  iv  (?),  Barbed  spear  (angon  ?),  1  ft.  9^  in.  long,  from  Carvoran  on  the 

Roman  Wall,  Black  Gate  Museum,  Newcastle-on-Tyne. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xxv 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

12,  vi,  Angon  from  Harmignies,  Belgium,  3  ft.  6  in.  long,  Musee  du 

Cinquantenaire,  Brussels. 

13,  Ferule  for  butt  end  of  spear,  Guildhall  Museum,  London  (p.  241). 

14,  Do.,  of  different  form,  from  Rochester,  Kent,  Rochester  Museum. 

15,  vi,  Angon  from  Croydon,  Surrey,  3  ft.  2^  in.  long,  British  Museum. 

XXXIII.  FIBULAE  AS  WORN 243 

1,  2,  vi  2,  Theodora  and  Justinian,  with  an  ecclesiastic  behind,  from  the 
mosaic  in  S.  Vitale,  Ravenna  (p.  274). 

3,  v,  *Roma'  from  a  late  Roman  ivory  at  Vienna  (p.  270). 

4,  IV,  A  Roman  emperor  from  a  late  Roman  ivory  at  Vienna. 

XXXIV.  SQUARE  HEADED  FIBULAE  FROM  THE  CEME- 

TERY AT  BIFRONS,  KENT  .         .         .         .245 

(See  p.  256  f.) 

1,  vi  *.       2,  vi1.       5,  VI3. 

7,  vi2.       10,  11,  v3  (p.  266).       12  (p.  266). 

XXXV.  ROUND    HEADED    FIBULAE    FROM    THE   CEME- 

TERY AT  BIFRONS,  KENT 245 

(See  p.  255  f.) 

1,  4,  v3  (p.  258).      2,  vi3  (p.  258).      5,  vi  1.      6,  7,  vi2. 
10,  12,  v3.       11,  vi2  (p.  280).       9,  13  (p.  256). 

XXXVI.  PLATE    AND    RING    FIBULAE    FROM    BIFRONS, 

KENT 245 

(See  p.  273  f.) 
6,  8,  v3.     10,  vi2  (p.  273).     13,  vii1. 

XXXVII.  SOME  TYPES  OF  FIBULAE  NOT  REPRESENTED 

AT  BIFRONS 247 

1,  vi3,  Bronze  fibula,  Lombard,  from  Val   di  Ledro,  c.   3^  in.  long, 

Museum  at  Trient. 

2,  vi  3,  Do.,  do.,  from  Monte  di  Terlago,  ibid. 

3,  VI 1,  Penannular  brooch  from  Higham,  Kent,  Rochester  Museum. 

4,  Penannular  brooch  from  Duston,  Northants,  Northampton  Museum. 

5,  vi l,   Pair  of  small   equal   armed   brooches  from  Alfriston,   Sussex, 

Barbican  House,  Lewes. 

6,  Small  equal  armed  brooch,  2J  in.  long,  from  Stapenhill,  Staffordshire, 

Burton-on-Trent. 

7,  VI  2,  Equal  armed  fibula  of  early  type,  2^  in.  broad,  from  Kempston, 

Beds  (pp.  248,  271,  562),  British  Museum. 

8,  vi,  Pair  of  trefoil  headed  bronze  brooches,  3|  in.  long,  from  Stapen- 

hill, at  Burton-on-Trent. 


xxvi  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

9,  vi,  Trefoil  headed  fibula  from  High  Down,  Sussex,  at  Ferring  Grange. 

10,  vi,  Do.,  2§  in.  long,  from  Birdoswald  on  the  Roman  Wall,  at  Black 

Gate  Museum,  Newcastle. 

XXXVIII.  EARLY  FIBULAE:    FIBULAE  FROM   SACKRAU, 

BY  BRESLAU 251 

1,  iv  B.C.,  Bronze  fibula  of  La  Tene  type  I,  Museum  at  Innsbruck 

(p.  258). 

2,  iv,  Roman  '  cross  bow '  fibula,  Trieste  Museum. 

•    3,  IV1,  Three  silver-gilt  triple-coiled  fibulae  from  Sackrau. 

4,  iv  \  Front  view  of  double-coiled  fibula  of  gold  from  Sackrau,  Museum 

at  Breslau. 

5,  iv  *,  Back  view  of  do. 

[Nos.  4  and  5  are  somewhat  enlarged,  the  three  under  No.  3  are  con- 
siderably reduced.  The  middle  one  of  3  is  3J  in.  high.  No.  4  is 
2§  in.  high.] 

XXXIX.  MISCELLANEOUS       ROUND       AND       SQUARE 

HEADED   FIBULAE 255 

1,  vi  3,  Silver  fibula  of  a  form  hardly  known  in  this  country,  from  Market 

Overton,  Rutland,  3^  in.  high,  at  Tickencote  Hall,  near  Stamford. 

2,  vi  2,  Bronze  fibula  from  Kent,  Lord  Grantley's  Collection. 

3,  vi  2,  Bronze  fibula  from  Kent,  as  above. 

4,  vi2,  Bronze  fibula  from  Barrington,  Cambs,  Ashmolean. 

5,  vi  *,  Bronze  fibula  imitating  the  early  sheet  silver  type,  from  Enver- 

meu,  Normandy,  Museum  at  Rouen  (p.  253). 

6,  v  l,  Part  of  round   headed  fibula  from   Hammoor  B,    in    Museum 

at  Kiel. 

7,  v 3,  Round    headed   fibula   from  a  Frisian   terp,   Museum   at   Leeu- 

warden,  Holland. 

XL.  EARLY  CRUCIFORM  FIBULAE 259 

1,  11,  Early  fibula  with  '  returned  foot,'  from  S.  Russia,  in  Antiquarium, 

Berlin  (p.  258). 

2,  v  l,  Early  cruciform  fibula  from  Hammoor  B,  in  Holstein,  Museum 

at  Kiel.     Date  about  400  A.D. 

3,  v  2,  More  advanced  cruciform  fibula,  as  above. 

4,  v 3,  Early  cruciform   fibula  from   Suffolk,   Norwich  Museum,  Fitch 

Collection. 

5,  V3,  Early  cruciform   fibula  from   Holme   Pierrepont   near  Cotgrave, 

Notts,  3^  in.  long,  Sheffield  Museum  (p.  262). 

6,  iv  3,  Fibula  of  very  early  type  found  at  Dorchester,  Oxon,  2§  in.  long, 

Ashmolean. 

7,  vi,  Fibula  of  early  type  from  Midlum,  Kreis  Lehe,  Hanover,  Pro- 

vincial Museum  at  Hanover. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xxvii 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

XLI.     CONSTRUCTION      OF      ENGLISH      CRUCIFORM 

FIBULAE 261 

1,  v3,  Early  cruciform  fibula  found  in  a  tomb  near  Cestersover  on  the 

Watling  Street  not  far  from  Rugby,  3^  in.  long,  see  H.  Schetelig, 
Cruciform  Brooches  of  Norway,  p.  98,  Rugby  School  Museum. 
[Front  and  back  view.] 

2,  v3,    Bronze   cruciform   fibula   finely   wrought,  from   Malton    Farm, 

Cambs,  4  in.  long,  Ashmolean.     [Perhaps  imported.] 

3,  vi,  Head  of  cruciform  fibula  from  Sancton,  Yorlcs,  showing  mode  of 

attaching  the  side  knobs,  Ashmolean. 

4,  VI  *  (c.  500  a.d.),  Cruciform  fibula,  front  and  back  views,  found  at 

Corbridge,  Northumberland,  3$  in.  long,  at  Beaufront  Castle, 
by  Hexham. 

5,  vi  2,  Fibula  from  Blaby,  Leicestershire,  Leicester  Museum  (p.  265). 

6,  vi  *,   Fibula   from   East    Sheffbrd,  Berks,   3|   in.  long,  Museum   at 

Newbury. 

7,  vi2,  Fibula  from  near  Mildenhall,  Suffolk,  with  traces  of  enamel, 

collection  of  Mr.  S.  G.  Fenton,  London  (p.  268). 

XLII.    SOME    SPECIAL    FORMS    DERIVED    FROM    THE 

CRUCIFORM  FIBULA 265 

1,  VI,  Group  of  fibulae  from  Kempston,  Beds,  British  Museum. 
2»  3>  v1,  Fibulae  from  Borgstedt,  Schleswig,  in  Kiel  Museum. 
4,   Enlarged  view  of  a  Kempston  fibula,  about    3J  in.  long,  British 
Museum. 

XLIII.  FEET  OF  CRUCIFORM  FIBULAE        .         .         .        .267 

1,  vi  2,  Cruciform  fibula  from  Hornsea,  5  in.  long,  Museum  at  Hull. 

2,  vi 1,  Do.,  from  Exning,  Suffolk,  4$  in.  long,  Norwich  Museum. 

3,  vi  2,  Do.,  from  Hornsea,  4J  in.  long,  Museum  at  Hull. 

4,  Foot  of  cruciform  fibula  in  Lord  Grantley's  Collection. 

5,  Do.,  from  Saxby,  Leicestershire,  in  Midland  Institute,  Derby. 

6,  vi 2,  Cruciform   fibula  from  Little  Wilbraham,  Cambs,  see  Neville, 

Saxon  Obsequies,  pi.  4,  105,  5J  in.  long,  at  Audley  End. 

XLIV.  CRUCIFORM  FIBULA  FROM  LONDESBOROUGH    .     268 
vi  2,  Length  5^  in.   Remarkable  for  its  fine  preservation,  Museum  at  Hull. 

XLV.  FLORID  LATE  CRUCIFORM  FIBULAE         .         .         .269 

1,  vi3,  From  West  Stow  Heath,  Suffolk,  6  in.  long,  Museum  at  Bury  St. 

Edmunds. 

2,  vi3,  From  Little  Wilbraham,  Cambs,  5  in.  long.    See  Neville,  Saxon 

Obsequies,  pi.  2,  8  r  ;  Haakon  Schetelig,  Cruciform  Brooches  of  Norway, 
pp.  80,  109,  153.     He  dates  it  550-600  a.d.     At  Audley  End. 

3,  vi  3,  From  Hornsea,  4$  in.  long,  Museum  at  Hull. 


xxviii  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

4,  vii  x,  From  Upton  Snodsbury,  Worcestershire,  4^  in.  long,  Victoria 

Institute,  Worcester. 

5,  VI s,  From  Barrington,  Cambs,  Ashmolean,  Evans  Collection  (pp.  270, 

597). 

6,  VII !,  Foot  of  fibula  similar  to  No.  3,  from  Whitehill,  Tynemouth, 

Northumberland,  Black  Gate  Museum,  Newcastle. 

7,  vi3,  From  Chesterford,  Essex,  Liverpool  Museum  (pp.  270,  597). 


XLVI.  PLATE  AND  EQUAL-ARMED  FIBULAE      .        .         .271 

1,  v,  Base  of '  applied '  brooch  with  traces  of  enamel,  Museum  at  Hanover 

(P.  278). 

2,  v,  Back,  view  of  similar  piece,  Museum  at  Geestemiinde  near  Bremen 

(p.  278). 

3,  v,  Base  of  applied  brooch  of  different  pattern.     See  Neville,  Saxon 

Obsequies,  pi.  3,  22  for  a  similar  piece,  Museum  at  Hanover  (p.  278). 

4,  vi ',  Fibula  in  form  of  a  duck,  from  Chessell  Down,  Isle  of  Wight, 

Carisbrooke  Castle  (p.  280). 

5,  IX,  Pewter  brooch,  if  in.  diameter,  found  with  others  in  Cheapside, 

London,  late  Saxon,  Guildhall  Museum,  London  (p.  280). 

6,  vii  x,  Silver  brooch   enclosing  cast   of  silver   coin   of  the   Emperor 

Valentinian,  York  Museum,  Croft  Collection  (p.  279). 

7,  Vii,  Equal  armed  fibula  from  Kief,  Russia. 

8,  vii,  Do.,  from  Trient,  Austria. 

9,  vii,  Do.,  do. 

10,  vi,  Equal    armed   fibulae    from    Sweden,   Museum   at  Stockholm. 

Date  vi. 


XLVII.  SAUCER,  ETC.,  FIBULAE  FROM  KEMPSTON,  ETC.     275 

1,  vi,  Group  of  saucer  and  applied  fibulae  from  Kempston,  Beds,  British 

Museum. 

2,  vi  3,  Saucer  brooch  of  unusual  construction  from  Duston,  Northants, 

2§  in.  diameter,  Northampton  Museum. 

XLVIII.  PETROSSA    FIBULAE  AND    PLATE   FIBULAE  OF 

SPECIAL  FORMS 279 

1,  vi 3,  « Ibis '  fibula  from  the  Treasure  of  Petrossa,  io-in.  high,  University 

Museum,  Bucharest  (pp.  247,  273,  280). 

2,  IV3,  Fibula  from  the  Treasure  of  Petrossa,  as  above  (p.  273). 

3,  vi  2,  Fibula  of  Swastika  form  with  four  birds'  heads  and  red  enamel 

in  centre,  i§  in.  diameter,  bronze,  from  neighbourhood  of  Mildenhall, 
Suffolk,  collection  of  Mr.  S.  G.  Fenton,  London. 

4,  vii  *,  Tri-lobed  bronze  fibula,  z\  in.  across,  from  Lakenheath  Warren, 

Suffolk,  Museum  at  Cambridge. 

5,  vi3,  Swastika  brooch,   1   in.   across,  bronze,  from   Alfriston,   Sussex, 

Lewes  Museum. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xxix 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

6,  vi3,  Circular  bronze  brooch,  i|  in.  across,  pierced  with  a  'swastika' 

pattern,   from    Market    Overton,    Rutland,   at    Tickencote    Hall, 
Rutland. 

7,  vi2,  'S'  shaped  brooch  with  two  birds'  heads,  one  broken,  from  Iffley, 

Oxon,  i£  in.  long,  British  Museum. 

XLIX.  DECORATED  QUOIT  FIBULAE 281 

1,  vi8,  Quoit  fibula  from  Sarre,  Kent,  silver  parcel  gilt,  3^  in.  diameter^ 

British  Museum  (p.  687). 

2,  vi3,  Quoit  fibula  from  Alfriston,  Sussex,  silver,  with   niello,  i§  in. 

diameter,  Lewes  Museum  (p.  304). 

3,  vi  *,  Quoit  fibula   from  Alfriston,  Sussex,  bronze  silvered,    1  fy   in. 

diameter,  Lewes  Museum. 

L.  NON-SAXON  RING  FIBULAE 285 

1,  Penannular  bronze  fibula  from  Ham  Hill,  Somerset,  Romano-British, 

Museum  at  Taunton. 

2,  Penannular  bronze  fibula  from  High  Down,  Sussex,  probably  Romano- 

British,  c.  3  in.  diameter,  collection  of  Edwin  Henty,  Esq. 

3,  Pair  of  bronze  annular  fibulae  found  in  the  garden  at  Audley  End, 

Essex,  probably  mediaeval,  at  Audley  End. 

4,  Bronze  annular  fibula  found  on  Coquet  Island,  Northumberland,  with 

No.  5,  i£  in.  diameter,  Alnwick  Castle  Museum. 

5,  Enamelled  plaque  found  with  No.  4.    From  the  shape  of  the  ornaments 

in   the    outer   rim    probably  mediaeval,   ij  in.  diameter,  Alnwick 
Castle  Museum. 

LI.  ANGLO-SAXON  RING  FIBULAE 287 

1,  Vs,  Quoit-brooch  of  penannular  type,  bronze,  ij  in.  diameter,  Bloxam 

Collection,  Museum  at  Rugby  (p.  284). 

2,  vi  2,  Annular  brooch,  bronze,  ijin.  diameter,  from  Stapenhill,  Museum 

of  the  Burton-on-Trent  Archaeological  Society,  Burton-on-Trent. 

3,  VI  *,  Ring  of  bronze  annular  brooch,  faceted,   1 J  in.  diameter^  from 

West  Stow  Heath,  Suffolk,  Fenton  Collection. 

4,  vi2,  Annular  bronze  brooch,  \\  in.  diameter,  from  Hornsea,  Museum 

at  Hull. 

5,  Ring  made  of  the  tine  of  stag's  horn,  3  in.  diameter,  possibly  used  as 

an  annular  brooch,  from  Londesborough,  East  Yorkshire,  Museum 
at  Hull. 

6,  vii  J,  Two  small  annular  brooches,  about  1  in.  diameter,  from  Uncleby, 

East  Yorkshire,  Museum  at  York. 

7,  vii1,  Annular  bronze  brooch  with  garnet  settings,  ig  in.  diameter, 

as  above. 

8,  vii1,  Annular  brooch,  bronze,  with  knobs  and  animals'  heads,  i|  in. 

diameter,  from   Bifrons,   Kent,   Museum   of  Kent   Archaeological 
Society,  Maidstone. 


xxx  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

9,  v3,  Bronze  penannular  brooch,  ij  in.  diameter,  Bloxam  Collection, 

Museum  at  Rugby. 

10,  vn1,  Annular  brooch,  silver,  i^  in.  diameter,  from  Faversham,  Kent, 

British  Museum. 
ii,  vn1,  Silver  annular  brooch,  with  animals'   heads,   ij  in.  diameter, 

from  Uncleby,  Museum  at  York. 
1 2,  c.  400,  Two  animals'  heads  terminating  a  golden  necklet  from  near  Abo, 

Finland,  Museum  at  Stockholm. 

LII.  ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  ORNAMENT  AND  TECHNIQUE     293 

1,  Stone  at  entrance  to  tumulus  at  Newgrange,  Ireland  (p.  292). 

2,  Piece  of  ivory  or  bone  from  Frindsbury  near  Rochester,  Kent,  found 

with  Roman  objects,  Liverpool  Museum  (p.  305). 

3,  Late  Celtic  bronze  gilt  fibula  from  Aesica  on  the  Roman  wall,  length 

4J  in.,  see  Arckaeologia,  lv,  179  f.,  Newcastle  Museum  (p.  292). 

4,  Buckle  of  bone,  Alnwick  Castle  Museum. 

5,  Metal  strap-end  with  spiral  inlays,  Museum  at  Worms  (p.  292). 

6,  Burgundian  bronze  buckle,  Museum  at  Lausanne  (p.  303). 

7,  Enlarged  portion  of  foot  of  Roman  fibula,  PI.  xxxvm,  2  (p.  304). 

8,  Piece  of  bone  from  Croydon,  Surrey,  Grange  Wood  Museum. 

9,  Enlarged    portion    of    Roman    silver    incised   and    nielloed    plaque, 

Museum  at  Mainz  (p.  304). 

10,  Back  plate  of  fibula,  silver,  incised  and  nielloed,  from  Faversham, 

Kent,  Ashmolean,  Oxford,  with  central  portion  enlarged  (p.  537). 

11,  Enlarged  portion  of  quoit  brooch  from  Alfriston,  Sussex,  PI.  xlix,  2 

(p.  304). 

LIII.  ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  TECHNIQUE       .         .         .         .305 

1,  iv  B.C.,  Golden  ear  pendant  of  fine  Greek  workmanship  from  Kertsch, 

Hermitage,  St.  Petersburg  (p.  310). 

2,  vn  I,  Portion,  enlarged,  of  filigree  work  on  a  Kentish  disc  fibula  from 

Abingdon,  Berks,  British  Museum  (p.  311). 

3,  Golden  eagle  of  Roman  workmanship,  Museum  at  Stockholm  (p.  310). 

4,  Portion  of  ivory  box  from  Old  Park,  Dover,  Dover  Museum. 

5,  Enlarged  view  of  gold  ring,  from  Bossington,  Stockbridge,  Hants,  late 

Saxon,  Ashmolean  Museum  (p.  311). 

6,  7,  Golden  pendants  in  the  Maclean  Collection,  Fitzwilliam  Museum, 

Cambridge,  see  Catalogue  of  Collection  (pp.  306,  310). 

8,  vn1,  Golden  jewel  inlaid  with  garnets  from  Twickenham,  Middlesex, 

British  Museum,  diameter  1^-  in.  (p.  311). 

9,  10,  The  Herpaly  Shield  boss.     Barbaric  work,  Museum  at  Budapest, 

with  portion  enlarged. 

LIV.  SCANDINAVIAN  GOLD  WORK 309 

Enriched  necklets  in  gold  from  Sweden,  in  the  National  Museum,  Stock- 
holm.    Date  v. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xxxi 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

The  finest  work  is  on  the  necklet  with  three  strands.  That  on 
the  necklets  with  five  and  with  seven  strands  is  not  quite  so  good. 
See  Bernhard  Salin,  Thierornamentik,  p.  211  f.  The  reproduction 
is  about  the  size  of  the  originals. 


3°9 


311 


LV.  SCANDINAVIAN  GOLD  WORK 

Part  of  the  three  strand  necklet  of  gold  as  above,  and  portion  of  golden 
girdle,  Museum  at  Stockholm.     Date  V. 
In  front  four  bracteates. 


LVI.  THE  WINDSOR  DAGGER  POMMEL     .... 

Silver  pommel  of  dagger  with  enriched  gold  plate  on  one  face,  found  at 
Windsor,  from  the  Evans  Collection,  in  the  Ashmolean  Museum. 
Date  vii.     Enlarged  five  diameters. 

LVII.  APPLIED  AND  SAUCER  BROOCHES  .         .         .         .313 

1,  VI 1,   Applied    brooch    from    Fairford,    Gloucestershire,    in    British 

Museum,  2  in.  diameter. 

2,  VI3,  Applied  brooch   from    Frilford,  Berks,  in  Ashmolean   Museum, 

i§  in.  diameter. 

3,  vi 3,  Saucer  brooch  from  Upton   Snodsbury,  Worcestershire,  in  Wor- 

cester Museum,  i§  in.  diameter. 

4,  vi  3,  Pair  of  saucer  brooches  from  Mildenhall,  Wilts,  in  Museum  at 

Devizes,  2J  in.  diameter. 

5,  VI 1,  Pair  of  saucer  brooches  found  at  Horton  Kirby,  Kent,  Museum 

of  Kent  Archaeological  Society  at  Maidstone,  2  in.  diameter  (p.  611). 

6,  v3,  Saucer  brooch  found  at  Mitcham,  collection  of  Captain  Bidder, 

1 1  in.  diameter. 

7,  vi 3,  Saucer  brooch  from  Fairford,  Glos.      In  Ashmolean    Museum, 

21  in.  diameter. 

LVIII.  SAUCER      BROOCHES      WITH      CONVENTIONAL 

ORNAMENT,  AND  BUTTON  BROOCHES      .         .315 

1,  vi  3,  Large  saucer  brooch  from  Ashendon,  Bucks,  3  J  in.  diam.,  with 

settings  of  garnet,  at  Audley  End. 

2,  vi 8,  Pair  of  saucer  brooches,  probably  from  Linton  Heath,  Cambs,  at 

Audley  End. 

3,  4,  vi 3,    Small   button    brooches    from    Alfriston,   Sussex,    in    Lewes 

Museum  (p.  321  f). 

5,  vi l,  Applied  brooch  from  interment  4  in  the  pagan  Thames-Kennet 

cemetery  at  Reading,  Reading  Museum. 

6,  vi 2,  Small  button  brooch,  §  in.  diameter,  from  Woodyates  on  the  borders 

of  Wilts  and  Dorset,  Devizes  Museum  (p.  321  f.). 

7,  vi8,  Button  brooch  from  Chessell  Down,  Isle  of  Wight,  Museum  at 

Carisbrooke  Castle  (p.  321  f.). 


xxxii  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

LIX.  SAUCER  BROOCHES,  ETC.,  WITH  SCROLL  ORNA- 
MENT, AND  BUTTON  BROOCHES    .    .    .317 

1,  VI1,  Gilded    bronze    saucer    brooch    from    Alfriston,   Sussex,    i§   in. 

diameter,  Museum  at  Lewes  (p.  316). 

2,  Do.,  from  Higham  near  Gravesend,  Kent,  Rochester  Museum  (pp.  611, 

629). 

3,  Small  saucer  brooch  from  Duston,  Northants,  Northampton  Museum. 

4,  Small  button  brooch  from  Kempston,  Beds,  British  Museum  (p.  321  f.). 

5,  vi  I,  Do.,  from  Alfriston,  Sussex,  Lewes  Museum  (p.  322). 

6,  v  3,  Saucer  brooch  from  Mitcham,  Surrey,  1$  in.  in  diameter,  collection 

of  Captain  Bidder  (p.  316). 

7,  VI 1,  Scabbard  mount  of  silver  with  gilded  ornaments,  from  Bright- 

hampton,  Oxon,  enlarged,  Ashmolean. 

LX.  THE    HUMAN    FORM    AND    FACE    IN    TEUTONIC 

ORNAMENT 319 

1,  vii1,  Bronze  mounting  of  drinking  horn  from  the  Taplow  Barrow, 

Bucks,  British  Museum. 

2,  vi  J,  Foot  of  square  headed  gilt  bronze  fibula,  from  Alfriston,  Sussex, 

twice  natural  size,  Lewes  Museum. 

3,  Head   from    Roman    bronze   bowl   found    in    Denmark,    Copenhagen 

Museum. 

4,  Head   from   bronze   bowl  from    Denmark   of  barbaric   workmanship, 

Copenhagen  Museum. 

5,  v,  Two  heads  from  the  golden  necklet  with  three  strands  on  PL  lxv, 

from  Westgothland,  Sweden,  enlarged  four  and  a  half  diameters, 
Museum  at  Stockholm. 

6,  VI 3,  Portion  of  applied  brooch  from  Barrington,  Cambs,  3  in.  across, 

ornamented  with  parts  of  the  human  form,  Museum  at  Cambridge 
(p.  276). 

7,  vi1,  Pair  of  button  fibulae  1$  in.  across,  from  Bifrons,  Kent,  K.  A.  S. 

Collection,  Maidstone  (p.  323). 

8,  Small   buckle   from    Blekinge,  Sweden,    6ee    Salin,   Thierornamentik, 

p.  211,  Museum  at  Stockholm. 

9,  Bracteate-like  pendant  with  head  and  arms  of  human  figure  in  repousse, 

from  Alten  Elsing,  Museum  at  Regensburg  (p.  323). 

LXI.  ROMAN  AND  BARBARIC  ORNAMENT        .         .         .323 

1,  in,  Breast  ornament  of  bronze,  silver  plated  and  gilt,  5  in.  diameter, 

from  Thorsberg  Moss,  Denmark,  Museum  at  Kiel. 

2,  ill,  Portion  of  similar  breast  ornament  with  the  original  plating  on  the 

outer  circle  removed  and  replaced  by  barbaric  work,  Museum  at  Kiel. 

3,  v3,  Bronze  plaque  or  pendant  from  near  Rochester,  Kent,  tin  or  silver 

inlays  on  outer  rim,  Museum  at  Rochester. 

LXII.  BIFRONS  FIBULA 326 

vi ',  Square  headed  fibula  of  silver,  original  5J  in.  long,  made  in  three 
pieces,  K.  A.  S.  Collection,  Maidstone,  Kent. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xxxiii 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

LXIII.  INTERLACING  ANIMAL  ORNAMENT      .        .        .329 

1,  vii2,  Bronze  disc,  gilded,  probably  used,  like  the  Kiel  plaques,  PI.  LXi, 

as  a  breast  ornament,  from  Alton  Hill,  Bottisham,  Cambs,  diameter 
3  in.,  Ashmolean  Museum,  Oxford. 

2,  x,  Animals  with  interlacing  work  on  carved  stone  of  about  x,  in  the 

Gloucester  Museum. 

3,  vii2,  Embossed  silver  plaque,  i£  in.  in  diameter,  found  in  a  tumulus 

at  Caenby,  Lincolnshire,  British  Museum,  see  Akerman,  Remains  of 
Pagan  Saxondom,  pi.  xv. 

4,  vii  *,  Cocked   hat  pommel  of  a  sword   from  Crundale,  Kent,  with 

interlacing  animal  ornament,  British  Museum.     Below  is  an  orna- 
ment of  the  hilt. 

5,  vii1,  Embossed  silver  plaque  of  an  'applied'  brooch,   if  in.  across, 

found  in  St.  John's  College  Cricket  Field,  Cambridge,  with  naturally 
treated  animals,  Museum  at  Cambridge  (p.  106). 

6,  vii  *,  Cast  bronze  pendant  finely  chased  and  gilt,  from  Gilton,  Kent, 

i\%  in.  across,  Museum  in  Liverpool,  see  Salin,  Tkierornamentik, 
P-  327- 

LXIV.  SQUARE   HEADED   BRONZE   FIBULAE   OF   PLAIN 

TYPE'.         .        .     " 335 

1,  vi2,  Square  headed  fibula  from  Market  Overton,  Rutland,  6  in.  long, 

at  Tickencote  Hall. 

2,  vi1,  Square  headed  fibula  from  Kenninghall,  Norfolk,  6j  in.  long, 

British  Museum. 

3,  VI 3,  Square  headed  fibula  from  High  Dyke,  near  Welbourn,  Lincoln- 

shire, in  Alnwick  Castle  Museum,  Catalogue  number  292,  5^  in.  long. 

LXV.  SQUARE  HEADED  FIBULAE,  BRONZE  AND  SILVER     336 

1,  VI  2,  Square  headed  fibula  from  Billesdon,  Leicestershire,  bronze,  6  in. 

long,  Museum  at  Leicester. 

2,  vii  3,  Square  headed  fibula,  silver,  from  Richborough,  Kent,  Mayer 

Collection,  Liverpool  (p.  342). 

3,  vii  2,  Square  headed  fibula,  silver,  4  in.  long,  from  Gilton,  Kent,  grave 

48  (p.  342).     Mayer  Collection,  Liverpool.     Inset,  portion  of  silver 
ornament  found  with  the  above  (p.  342). 

4,  VI  2,  Square  headed  fibula  with  stud  on  bow,  bronze,  6  in.  long,  from 

Ipswich,  Christchurch  Museum,  Ipswich. 

LXVL  ORNATE  SQUARE  HEADED  BROOCHES  FROM 

THE  MIDLANDS 337 

1,  vi 3,  Square  headed  bronze  fibula  from  Rothley  Temple,  Leicestershire, 

$\  in.  long,  Museum  at  Leicester. 

2,  vi 3,  Ornate  bronze  square  headed  fibula  damaged  below,  found  on  site 

of  St.  Andrew's  Hospital,  Northampton,  Northampton  Museum. 

3,  vi 3,  Square  headed  bronze  fibula  from  Duston,  Northants,  length 

5|  in.,  Northampton  Museum. 
ill  c 


xxxiv  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

LXVII.  SQUARE   HEADED   FIBULAE   FROM  ALFRISTON, 

SUSSEX        .         .        .   ■ 339 

1,  vi3,  Square  headed   ornate  brooch  of  gilded  bronze  from  Alfriston, 

Sussex,  4J  in.  long,  Lewes  Museum. 

2,  vi 3,  Do.,  do.,  4§  in.  long,  same  places. 

3,  vi 3,  Do.,  do.,  5  in,  long,  same  places. 


LXVIII.  LATER  ANIMAL  ORNAMENT         .         .         .         .341 

1,  vii  l,  Portion  of  the  silver  gilt  rim  of  a  vessel  with  late  animal  orna- 

ment in  repousse  work,  from  the  Old  Park,  Dover,  in  Dover  Museum 
(p.  462). 

2,  4,  vi3,  Pair  of  saucer  brooches  from  Broughton  Poggs,  Oxon,  i§  in. 

in  diameter,  Liverpool  Museum. 

3,  vi2,  Saucer  brooch  from  Filkins,  Oxon,  if  in.  diameter,  Liverpool 

Museum  (p.  689). 

5,  vi  3,  Saucer  brooch  from  Brockbridge,  near  Droxford,  Hants,  i§  in. 

in  diameter,  Winchester  Museum. 

6,  vii1,  The  'Myton'  or  'St.  Nicholas'  brooch  from  Warwick,  5^  in. 

long,  Museum  at  Warwick  (p.  340). 

7,  VI  3,  Saucer  brooch  from  Alfriston,  Sussex,  1  x5^  in.  diameter,  Museum 

at  Lewes. 

8,  VI2,  Applied  brooch  from  Kempston,  Beds,  2^!  in.  diameter,  British 

Museum  (p.  340). 

9,  vi 3,  Saucer  brooch  from  Alfriston,  Sussex,  1 J  in.  in  diameter,  Museum 

at  Lewes. 


LXIX.  LATEST  SAUCER  AND  CRUCIFORM  BROOCHES  .     343 

1,  vii2,  Saucer  brooch  from  Wheatley,  Oxon,  3^  in.  across,  Ashmolean 

Museum. 

2,  vii2,   Saucer   brooch   from    Bidfoid,    Warwickshire,    2j   in.   across, 

Museum  at  Worcester. 

3,  vii 2,  Late  cruciform  brooch  from  Longb ridge,  Warwickshire,  7 J  in. 

long,  British  Museum. 

4,  vii1,  Saucer  brooch  from  East  Shefford,  Berks,  if  in.  across,  British 

Museum. 

5,  vii  1,  Saucer  brooch  found  in  a  cinerary  urn  in  a  tumulus  at  Marton 

near  Rugby,  z\  in.  across,  Bloxam  Collection,  Museum  at  Rugby 
(p.  669). 


LXX.  BUCKLES    OF    SIMPLE    TYPES     FROM     BIFRONS, 
KENT 

Portion   of  card  with    buckles   and    other   small   objects  from   Bifrons 
Cemetery,  Kent,  at  Bifrons  House,  three  quarters  full  size. 


347 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xxxv 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

LXXI.  EARLY     GOTHIC     BUCKLES:     BUCKLES    WITH 

RECTANGULAR  AND  OVAL  PLATES    .         .         .349 

1,  iv,  Three  small  golden  buckles  with  encrusted  plates,  from  S.  Russia, 

Museum  fiir  Volkerkunde,  Berlin  (p.  348). 

2,  Small  buckle  set  with  garnets  at  back  of  pin,  from  Crundale,  Kent, 

British  Museum  (p.  348). 

3,  ill,  Cross  set  with  carbuncles,  from  the  Crimea,  Museum  in  Odessa, 

dated  by  Prof.  Posta  II]  a.d. 

4,  vii  2,  Buckle  of  silver  gilt  with  rectangular  plate  set  with  garnets,  from 

Gilton,  Kent,  3^  in.  long,  Museum  at  Liverpool,  see  Akerman, 
Pagan  Saxondom,  pi.  xxix. 

5,  vii  *,  Small  square-plated  buckle  set  with  carbuncles,  from  East  Boldon, 

Co.  Durham,  Museum  at  Newcastle,  probably  vii  a.d. 

6,  VI 3,    Bronze   buckle  with    oval   plate,   from    Ipswich,   Christchurch 

Museum,  Ipswich. 

LXXII.  BUCKLES  WITH  OPEN-WORK  PLATES  .         .         .351 

1,  Small  buckle,  1^  in.  long,  formerly  encrusted  (with  large  garnet?), 

from  Barfriston,  Kent,  Museum  at  Liverpool  (p.  350). 

2,  Bronze  buckle  with  curious  pin  arrangement  and  open-work  plate, 

Museum  at  Rochester,  Kent  (p.  350). 

3,  vii  *,  Bronze  buckle  with  open-work  plate,  2|  in.  long,  from  Kingston, 

Kent,  Museum  at  Liverpool. 

4,  Pierced  bronze  plate,  Roman  work,  Provincial  Museum  at  Bonn. 

5,  Pierced  bronze  plates,  late  Celtic  work,  from  the  Marne  burials,  France, 

British  Museum. 

6,  vii  *,  Bronze  buckle  with  open-work  plate,  2 \  in.  long,  from  Uncleby, 

Yorkshire,  Museum  at  York. 

LXXIII.  BRONZE  AND  IRON  BUCKLES        .         .        .         .355 

1,  vii  2,  Ornate  bronze  buckle,  6 \  in.  long,  inlaid  and  gilded,  from  Crun- 

dale, Kent,  British  Museum  (p.  352). 

2,  vii2,  Large  iron  buckle,  6  in.  long,  diameter  of  ring  (much  corroded), 

2^  in.,  from  Faversham,  Kent,  Museum  at  Maidstone  (p.  174). 

3,  Back  view  of  bronze  buckle  with  complementary  plate,  from  Lavar- 

cherie,  Belgium,  Museum  at  Brussels. 

4,  Bronze  buckle  with  oval  plate  and  detachable  studs,  from  Wancennes, 

Belgium,  Museum  at  Namur. 

5,  vii  3,  Bronze  buckle  with  triangular  plate  and  fixed  studs,  provenance 

unknown,  Museum  at  Canterbury. 

LXXIV.  BUCKLE  SUITES 357 

1,  vii2,  Bronze  buckle,  4  in.  long,  with  complementary  plate,  from  Bar- 

friston, Kent,  Museum  at  Liverpool. 

2,  vii  3,  Bronze  buckle,  tinned,  3^  in.  long,  with  square  plate  en  suite, 

from  Sibertswold,  Museum  at  Liverpool. 


xxxvi  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

3,  Bone  buckle,  i£  in.  across,  from  Ozengel],  Kent,  Liverpool  (p.  348). 

4,  vn  3,  Back  view  of  No.  2,  with  Faussett's  original  label  upon  it. 

5,  vn2,  Back  view  of  No.  1,  as  above. 

LXXV.  BELT  PLATES,  ETC 358 

1,  vi  *,  Buckle  and  three  belt  plates,  bronze,  the  buckle  and  one  plate  set 

with  glass  beads.  The  band  on  which  the  plates  were  fixed  appears 
by  the  rivets  to  have  been  about  ^  in.  thick,  from  Mitcham, 
Surrey,  at  Mitcham  Vestry  Hall. 

2,  vi  \  Set  of  belt  plates  of  bronze,  tinned,  from  Bifrons,  Kent,  the  three 

largest  are  1  ^  in.  high.  The  plates  are  double  and  the  band  passed 
between  them,  a  swastika  device  on  face,  Maidstone,  K.  A.  S. 
Collection. 

3,  vi1,  Iron   buckle  from  Mitcham,  Surrey,  at  Mitcham  Vestry  Hall 

(P-  355). 

4,  vi 1,  Iron  buckle  from  Croydon,  Surrey,  in  British  Museum  (p.  355). 

5,  V  3,  Bronze  buckle,  with  portions  of  leather  strap  pierced  by  the  tongue, 

found  on  a  skeleton  on  Royston  Heath  in  1858,  1^  in.  extreme 
width,  Museum  at  Cambridge. 

6,  vi,  Belt  plate  from  Stowting,  Kent,  bronze,   if  in.  long,  Stowting 

Rectory. 

7,  vi1,  Shoe-shaped  stud,  bronze,  1^  in.  long,  as  above. 

LXXVI.  STRAP  ENDS,  SPIRAL  WIRE  CLASPS,  ETC.  .         .359 

1,  Two  bronze  strap  ends  from  Ozengell,  Kent,  2J  in.  long,  with  split 

shanks,  Liverpool  Museum. 

2,  Three  bronze  strap  ends  from  Bifrons,  Kent,  longest  2^-  in.  long, 

K.  A.  S.  Collection,  Maidstone.  Also  two  below  from  Faversham, 
Kent,  British  Museum. 

3,  Silver  girdle  fasteners,  c.  6  in.  long,  with  hook  and  eye  attachment, 

found  between  Twyford  and  Borough  Hill,  Leicestershire,  Museum 
at  Leicester. 

4,  VI 2,  Hook  and  eye  attachments  formed  of  spirally  coiled  silver  wire, 

the  wire  in  the  inner  part  of  the  coil  being  beaten  out  flat  and  orna- 
mented with  concentric  circles,  width  across  from  side  to  side  as 
shown  2J  in.  Found  at  Market  Overton,  Rutland,  now  at 
Tickencote  Hall. 

5,  vi1,  Spiral  wire  attachments  found  near  the  skull  of  a  skeleton  at 

Twyford,  Leicestershire,  c.  2  in.  in  width,  Museum  at  Leicester. 

LXXVII.  CLASPS  OF  THE  LARGER  KIND    .         .         .         .361 

1,  viii  (?),  Bronze  girdle  clasp  with  pierced  work,   from  the  Forman 

Collection,  8  in.  long,  Lord  Grantley's  Collection. 

2,  vn1,  Clasp,  gilded  bronze,  with  zoomorphic  ornament  of  the  early 

part  of  vn,  4^  in.  long,  from  the  Taplow  Barrow,  Bucks,  British 
Museum. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  <xxvii 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

3,  vn3,  One  half  of  a  clasp  (?)  from  Gilton,  Kent,  enlarged  ;  size  of 

original  i  in.  long,  pierced  work  in  gilded  silver,  with  foliated 
ornament  terminating  the  tripartite  tail  of  the  creature,  Museum  at 
Liverpool  (p.  106). 

4,  vi 2,  Clasp,  bronze,  from  Bifrons,  Kent,  c.  2  in.  long,  with  zoomorphic 

ornament,  at  Bifrons  House. 

5,  vi2,  Half  of  a  clasp,  bronze,  from  Saxonbury  near  Lewes,  i§  in.  long, 

Museum  at  Lewes. 

LXXVIII.  CLSAPS  OF  THE  SMALLER  KIND        .         .         .363 

(Probably  all  of  vi.) 

1,  Plain  wrist  clasp,  plate  bronze,  i£  in.  high,  one  part  front  view,  the 

other  back,  from  High  Dyke  near  Welbourn,  Lincolnshire,  Museum 
at  Alnwick  Castle. 

2,  Clasp  for  wrist,  plate  bronze  tinned,  with  punched  ornament,   1^  in. 

high,  from  Holdenby,  Northants,  Museum  at  Northampton. 

3,  Clasp  as  above,  from  Rothley  Temple,  Leicestershire,  Rugby  School 

Museum. 

4,  Pair  of  clasps,  front  and  back  view,  i£  in.  broad,  from  Londesborough, 

Yorkshire,  cast  bronze,  Museum  at  Hull. 

5,  Pair  of  clasps  in  cast  bronze,  from  West  Stow  Heath,  Suffolk,  Museum 

at  Bury  St.  Edmunds. 

6,  Clasp  in  cast  bronze,  from  Mildenhall,  Suffolk,  Museum  at  Bury  St. 

Edmunds. 

7,  Clasp  in  cast  bronze,  gilded,  1  ^  in.  broad,  from  North  Luffenham, 

Rutland,  Lord  Ancaster's  Collection,  Normanton  Park,  Rutland. 

8,  Clasp,   cast   bronze,    i£  in.  broad,  from   Bifrons,  Kent,  at   Bifrons 

House. 

9,  Clasp  in  cast  bronze  from  Londesborough,  Yorkshire,  Museum   at 

York. 

LXXIX.  CLASP  SUITES 365 

1,  vi3,  Suite  of  square  headed  fibula,  6  in.  long,  and  pair  of  clasps  with 

triangular  adjuncts,  gilded  bronze,  from  Barrington,  Cambs,  in 
Cambridge  Museum. 

2,  vn  *,  Front  and  back  view  of  clasp  in  gilded  bronze  with  triangular 

adjunct  in  the  same  piece,  3$  in.  high,  as  above. 

3,  Triangular  adjunct   from    N.  Luffenham,  Rutland,  in  the  collection 

of  Lord  Ancaster,  Normanton  Park. 
4j  Roman  stylus  (?),  3  in.  long,  bronze,  from  Leagrave,  Beds,  British 
Museum  (p.  370). 

LXXX.  LARGE  PINS  FOR  DRESS  OR  HAIR  .        .        .369 

1,  VIs,  Four  pins  from  King's  Field,  Faversham,  in  the  British  Museum. 

The  central  one  is  7|  in.  long,  that  with  garnet  inlays  in  the  head 
is  now  6|  in.  long.     All  are  of  bronze. 

2,  v3,  Bronze  pin  found  at  Leagrave,  Beds,  7  in.  long,  with  movable 

plates  in  a  ring  through  the  head,  British  Museum, 


xxxviii  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

3,  ix,  Two  bronze  pins,  one  with  a  hinged  head  plate  ;  the  other  with 

a  ring  through  the  head  is  6\  in.  long,  found  at  Brixworth, 
Northants,  Museum  at  Northampton.  The  pin  with  the  hinged 
head  plate  was  found  with  a  coin  of  Cuthred  of  Kent,  798-806. 

4,  Pin  with  fixed  head,  as  above. 

5,  Bronze  pin  with  head  in  the  shape  of  a   hand,  probably  Roman, 

Museum  at  Canterbury. 

6,  vi  *,  Head,  enlarged,  of  pin  of  gilded  bronze  from  Alfriston,  Sussex, 

Museum  at  Lewes. 

LXXXI.  SMALL  PINS  AND  PIN  SUITES,  AND  GERMANIC 

COSTUME  FROM  THE  FRANKS  CASKET.         .     371 

1,  vii2,  Pin   suite,  gold,  with   garnet  set   in   central  medallion,  from 

Little  Hampton,  Worcestershire,  central  medallion,  ^  in.  in  diameter, 
British  Museum  (p.  428). 

2,  VII  *,  Pin  suite  found  in  tumulus  on  Roundway  Down,  Wilts,  gold, 

with  garnets  in  heads  of  pins  and  dark  paste  in  central  medallion, 
pins  i£  in.  long,  space  between  the  pins  with  chain  at  full  stretch 
c.  5  in.,  Museum  at  Devizes  (p.  425  f.). 

3,  vii1,  Pendants  with   garnets  and   pastes  set   en   cabochon   in   gold, 

found  with  above,  as  above  (p.  425  f.). 
The  central  medallion  and  chain  with  head  of  pin  enlarged,  back  and 
front  views  (p.  425  f.). 
5,   6,  vii  l    (?),    Small    pins    from    Kentish    cemeteries,    1 J    in.    long, 
Museum  at  Liverpool. 

7,  8,  9,  10,  Figures  from  the  carved  bone  casket  of  about  650-700  A.D. 

called  the  Franks  casket,  British  Museum  (p.  377). 

LXXXII.  GERMANIC  COSTUME  OF  V  TO  VI  AND  IX     .     374 

1,  Frankish  noble  of  the  court  of  Charles  the  Bald,  from  an  illuminated 

MS.  of  the  latter  part  of  IX. 

2,  Ideal  statue  of  armed  Frankish  chieftain  of  about  500  a.d.,  from  a 

cast  issued  by  the  Germanic  Museum  at  Mainz. 

3,  Figure  of  Charles  the  Bald,  latter  half  of  ix,  from  the   Bible  of 

S.  Paolo,  Rome. 

LXXXIII.    GERMANIC     COSTUME    IN     SCULPTURE     II 

TO  IV 375 

1,  2,  IV,  Groups  of  Germanic  captives  from  the  lower  part  of  the  carved 
ivory  diptych  of  about  iv,  preserved  at  Halberstadt,  from  a  cast. 

3,  ll3,  Group  from  the  column  of  Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus,  showing 

two  Germanic  youths,  one  with  trews  and  tunic,  the  other  with 
trews,  tunic  and  cloak,  last  half  of  11  a.d.,  see  Petersen,  etc., 
Taf.  98  a. 

4,  113,  Group  from  above  showing  Germanic  female  captives  in  sleeve- 

less tunics  and  cloaks,  with  hair  dressed  in  different  fashions,  ibid, 
Taf.  82. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xxxix 

PLATE  AT  PAGE 

5,  XI  3,  Group  from  above,  showing  Germanic  lady  with  little  daughter 
in  a  four-wheeled  ox  wagon,  they  wear  sleeved  tunics  and  the  lady 
has  a  cloak  drawn  over  her  head  like  a  veil,  ibid,  Taf.  96  A. 

LXXXIV.   GOLD  STRIPS,  TEXTILES,  ETC 385 

1,  vii1,  Metallic  gold  in  narrow  strips  interwoven  with  woollen  threads, 

z\  times  natural  size,  found  in  the  Taplow  Barrow,  Bucks,  British 
Museum. 

2,  Portions  of  strips  of  metallic  gold  that  have  been  woven,  Gobelin 

fashion,  into  a  woollen  fabric.     Only  the  gold  is  seen.     As  above. 

3,  Long  brooch  of  bronze,  5^  in.  long,  with  remains  of  woven  fabric 

adhering  to  the  back  of  it,  and  the  latter  in  a  separate  piece  (p.  380). 

4,  Bone  comb  with  single  row  of  teeth  and  handle,  found  probably  in 

London,  4§  in.  long,  Guildhall  Museum.     See  Proc.  Soc.  Ant.  xii, 
"5  (P-  39°)- 


LINE   ILLUSTRATIONS    IN   THE   TEXT 

FIG.  PAGE 

i,  OUTLINE  OF  FIGURE  DESIGN  ON  BRONZE 
MOUNT  OF  DRINKING  HORN  found  at  Strood, 
Kent         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .115 

2,  CRUCIFORM    PATTERN   ON   ROMAN   ENAMELLED 

BROOCH,  Chesters  Museum,  Northumberland         .  .        118 

3,  PLAN  OF  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY  AT  BROAD- 

STAIRS,  KENT,  superimposed  on  a  Bronze  Age  burying 

place 132 

4,  VIEW  OVER  FOLKESTONE  TO  THE  ANGLO-SAXON 

CEMETERY  near  the  top  of  the  Down  on  the  road  to 
Dover      .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .141 

5,  VIEW  OF   THE   SITE  OF  HIGH  DOWN  CEMETERY, 

SUSSEX,  from  the  low  ground  to  the  south  between  the 
Downs  and  the  Sea  .  ,  .  .  .  .  .142 

6,  VIEW    OF    HIGH    DOWN    FROM    THE    EAST,   above 

Worthing  .........        143 


xl  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FIG.  PAGE 

7,  GROUP   OF  ANGLO-SAXON   TUMULI   ON   BREACH 

DOWN,  KENT 179 

8,  RUNIC     INSCRIPTION     ON     STONE,     in     Canterbury 

Museum  .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .182 

9,  SKETCH  OF  THE  TWO  SWORD  HILTS  FROM  THE 

POUAN  FIND,  at  Troyes .219 

10,  EARLY  FIBULA  OF  THE   SAFETY-PIN  TYPE   FROM 

PESCIERA,  North  Italy,  natural  size  (below) ;    SILVER 
FIBULA    OF    EARLY    TYPE     FROM    KINGSTON, 

KENT  (enlarged),  Museum  at  Liverpool  (above)      .         .       249 

11,  HEAD    OF  A  FIBULA    FROM    A    ROMAN    GRAVE,  at 

Reichenhall,    Bavaria,    showing    the    arrangement    of    the 
spring 251 

12,  EARLY  BRONZE  FIBULA,  of  the  'long'  type  from  Borg- 

stedt,  Schleswig         .         .         .  .         .         .         .       259 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTORY:   THE  ARRANGEMENT  AND 
SCOPE   OF  THE   VOLUMES 

The  arrangement  of  the  subject-matter  dealt  with  in  the 
following  pages  presents  some  difficulties.  The  objects  com- 
posing it  are  very  numerous  and  varied  and  may  be  regarded 
from  several  different  points  of  view.  From  that  of  the 
general  reader  who  has  been  considered  throughout  it  was 
necessary  that  the  book  should  be  readable  and  of  manageable 
size,  while  it  was  desired  at  the  same  time  to  furnish  the 
archaeologist  and  the  student  of  history  with  the  material 
available  for  their  special  purposes.  The  endeavour  has  been 
to  combine  these  desiderata  with  a  distribution  of  the  matter 
that  shall  be  reasonably  clear  and  logical,  and  some  explanation 
of  the  scheme  of  treatment  thus  adopted  may  suitably  be 
offered  at  the  outset. 

The  main  subject  of  the  two  volumes  of  this  work  already 
published x  was  Anglo-Saxon  architecture  viewed  in  its  relation 
to  the  general  life  of  the  people  in  the  early  middle  ages.  The 
features  of  that  life  that  were  pertinent  to  the  theme  were 
dealt  with  in  the  first  volume,  while  in  the  second  were  dis- 
cussed the  architectural  monuments  representing  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  style  from  the  end  of  the  sixth  century  to  the  Norman 
Conquest.  There  remains  to  be  considered  a  large  body  of 
Anglo-Saxon  work  of  a  decorative  kind  extending  over  a 
period  even  longer  than  that  covered  by  the  previous  volumes, 

1  The  Arts  in  Early  England:  i,  The  Life  of  Saxon  England  in  its  Relation 
to  the  Arts  ;  n,  Ecclesiastical  Architecture  in  England  from  the  Conversion  of  the 
Saxons  to  the  Norman  Conquest,  London,  John  Murray,  1903. 

Ill  A 


2  INTRODUCTORY 

a  considerable  part  of  it  belonging  to  the  pagan  epoch  prior  to 
the  conversion. 

Students  of  our  national  antiquities  are  well  aware  that 
the  material  just  referred  to  is  very  abundant  and  is  more- 
over difficult  to  treat  because  of  the  numerous  archaeological 
problems  of  origin  and  date  and  interpretation  involved  in  its 
consideration.  In  the  architectural  volume  an  endeavour  was 
made  to  cover  the  field  with  a  reasonable  measure  of  com- 
pleteness, and  if  this  same  method  be  still  followed  far  more 
space  will  be  required  than  a  single  volume  or  even  two  would 
afford.  To  circumscribe  the  treatment  by  excluding  pertinent 
subjects  from  consideration  or  by  evading  the  discussion"  of 
crucial  points  of  difficulty  would  be  unworthy  of  the  theme. 
The  Saxon  period  of  our  national  history  extends  over  more 
than  six  centuries  and  the  Saxonized  region  covers  by  far  the 
largest,  richest,  and  most  populous  parts  of  Great  Britain. 
The  artistic  annals  of  these  centuries  so  far  as  this  region  is 
concerned  provide  matter  for  a  considerable  chapter  in  the 
general  history  of  the  arts  in  the  British  Isles,  and  no  apology 
is  needed  for  essaying  the  work  of  its  compilation.  If  this 
prove  more  extensive  than  would  at  first  sight  seem  likely  it  is 
work  that  wears  a  national  colour,  and  no  one  who  has  set  his 
hand  to  such  a  task  could  escape  the  reproach  of  his  conscience 
if  he  spared  any  effort  in  carrying  it  to  completion.  A  like 
consideration  may  reconcile  the  reader  to  the  survey  of  an 
embarrassing  array  of  objects,  for  these  objects  after  all  belong 
to  his  own  country  and  are  the  productions  of  the  forefathers 
of  his  race. 

The  objects  in  question  possess  moreover  an  intrinsic 
interest  through  their  artistic  excellence.  On  this  a  word  or 
two  must  be  said  with  the  object  of  removing  an  impression 
that  may  have  been  left  on  some  readers'  minds  by  the  previous 
volume  on  the  architecture  of  the  period.  As  a  fact  we  do 
not  find  in  architecture  proper,  in  the  fabric,  so  to  say,  of 
buildings,  evidence  of  all  the  artistic  taste  and  talent  with  which 


ARTISTIC  MERIT  OF  SAXON  WORK  3 

the  Anglo-Saxon  craftsman  was  endowed.  The  branches  of 
Anglo-Saxon  work  with  which  we  have  now  to  deal  evince 
more  tact  in  design  and  refinement  in  execution  than  we  find 
in  the  surviving  architectural  monuments  described  and 
figured  in  the  previous  volume.  As  was  there  shown,  the 
Anglo-Saxon  builder  had  a  sense  of  the  monumental,  but  his 
masses,  though  possessed  of  a  rugged  grandeur,  combined  with 
this  a  certain  uncouthness,  as  if  the  designer  were  gifted  with 
large  ideas  but  lacked  the  needful  schooling  to  express  these 
ideas  in  clear  and  logical  form.  He  seems  often  uninstructed 
in  what  may  be  called  the  grammar  of  his  art,  and  rather  to 
be  feeling  his  way  towards  suitable  methods  of  treatment  than 
following  the  established  traditions  of  architectural  expression. 
The  undoubted  originality  and  inventiveness  he  shows  in  some 
of  his  arrangements  and  details  are  coupled  with  a  curious 
uncertainty  and  vacillation  in  others,  and  on  the  whole  Anglo- 
Saxon  architecture  is  not  without  a  touch  of  amateurishness. 

In  the  case  of  the  decorative  and  industrial  arts  no  such 
impression  is  produced.  Anglo-Saxon  coins  are  not  only 
cleverly  designed  but  executed  in  a  very  business-like  fashion. 
The  technique  of  the  so-called  *  Kentish '  jewellery  is  beyond  all 
praise,  and  the  bronze  fibulae  and  buckles  are  cast  and  chased 
with  both  decision  and  delicacy.  In  the  stone  carving  there 
is,  it  is  true,  an  immense  amount  of  rough  and  clumsy  or 
slight  and  careless  work  that  belongs  to  degenerate  epochs, 
but  on  the  other  hand  the  work  when  at  its  best,  in  the  earliest 
time  or  at  epochs  of  temporary  renaissance,  is  precise,  sensitive, 
and  assured.  The  execution  of  the  work  in  the  manuscripts 
and  in  '  tours  de  force '  like  the  Durham  embroideries  of  X 
exhibits  professional  mastery  of  the  most  accomplished  kind. 
The  Saxon  weapon-smith  was  a  notable  adept  in  the  manipula- 
tion of  malleable  iron  to  shield-bosses  or  spear-heads.  Hence 
it  follows  that  any  unfavourable  impression  of  Anglo-Saxon 
craftsmanship  derived  from  architectural  examples  must  be 
put  aside  when  the   attention    is   turned  to  the  smaller  or 


4  INTRODUCTORY 

movable  objects  with  which  the  remainder  of  this  work  is 
concerned,  for  on  these  we  have  every  right  to  dwell  with  a 
consciousness  of  national  pride. 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  this  book  is  written  mainly  from 
the  artistic  point  of  view  it  will  be  well  to  press  this  point 
with  some  insistence. 

When  we  regard  the  Anglo-Saxon  as  an  artist,  the  facts 
that  come  within  our  ken  will  be  to  some  readers  rather 
surprising. 

Observers  of  British  national  idiosyncrasies  will  have  noted 
that  many  of  our  countrypeople  fall  unconsciously  into  the 
pose  of  the  ancient  Romans,  who  affected  to  despise  the 
practice  of  the  fine  arts,  and  deemed  it  more  dignified  to  pay 
the  foreigner,  the  '  hungry  Greekling '  of  Juvenal,  to  produce 
for  them  whatever  in  this  line  might  be  desired.  These 
people  ignore  the  possibility  of  any  effective  artistic  ability  on 
the  part  of  the  British  born.  With  others  of  our  fellow 
citizens  the  same  peculiarity  shows  itself  in  a  different  form. 
They  do  not  despise  the  practice  of  the  arts,  but  on  the  con- 
trary glorify  it,  while  at  the  same  time  they  refuse  to  credit 
their  countrymen,  past  or  present,  with  any  special  ability  in 
this  department,  or  if  they  are  driven  to  admit  ability  they 
confine  it  to  the  Celtic  element  in  our  population.  It  is  with 
both  parties  almost  an  article  of  faith  that  anything  con- 
spicuously good  in  art  that  is  found  in  Britain  must  in  some 
way  or  another  have  come  from  abroad.  If  the  masterpiece 
in  question  be  a  portable  object  it  has  been  ferried  across  the 
sea,  while  if  it  be  a  fixed  monument  it  is  the  work  of  some 
imported  artist.  This  is  especially  the  case  in  regard  to  the 
Anglo-Saxon  region  and  period.  The  popular  idea  of  early 
Anglo-Saxon  culture  was  expressed  recently  in  an  *  obiter 
dictum '  of  an  accomplished  writer  in  the  Westminster  Gazette, 
*  China  possessed  a  civilization,  and  a  great  civilization,  at  a 
moment  when  our  own  Anglo-Saxon  ancestors  were  running 
about  in  skins  daubed  with  paint,'  and  this  gives  colour  to  the 


POPULAR  VIEW  OF  SAXON  ART  5 

remark  of  the  Director  of  a  London  museum,  presumably  in 
touch  with  public  opinion  on  such  matters,  to  the  effect  that 
*  it  was  vaguely  believed  that  the  Roman  remains  in  England 
and  Scotland  were  the  only  things  that  could  count  as  works 
of  art  previous  to  the  Norman  invasion.'  Even  professed 
antiquaries  who  have  not  specially  studied  early  work  are 
betrayed  into  expressions  which  show  the  strength  and  pre- 
valence of  this  prejudice.  It  happens  that  one  of  the 
specialities  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  goldsmith  was  the  making 
and  adorning  of  silver  spoons.  In  a  monumental  work  by 
an  English  authority,  Mr.  C.  J.  Jackson's  The  Spoon  and  its 
History \  a  gloomy  picture  is  drawn  of  l  the  dark  ages  which 
succeeded  the  civilization  of  Rome,'  and  the  author  decides 
that  at  such  an  epoch  objects  like  spoons  were  made  of  the 
cheapest  material  with  the  least  expenditure  of  labour,  and 
that  *  the  workmanship  was  of  the  rudest  description.'  He 
then  goes  on  to  figure  and  describe  one  of  the  actual  spoons 
found  in  an  Anglo-Saxon  grave,  similar  to  those  shown  sub- 
sequently, PI.  xciv  (Chapter  viii) — dainty  objects  in  gilded 
silver,  adorned  with  niello-work  and  inlaid  garnets,  by  no 
manner  of  means  carelessly  made  and  neither  cheap  nor  rude  ! 
The  truth  is  that  in  the  popular  estimation  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  is  credited  with  a  racial  character  of  a  rather  stolid  and 
heavy  order  and  it  is  easy  to  believe  that  he  would  not  make 
a  good  artist.  Hence  it  is  that  those  who,  whether  as  a 
matter  of  secret  pride  or  of  open  regret,  deprecate  the  national 
ability  in  art  have  credited  the  foreigner  at  one  time  or  another 
with  all  the  good  artistic  work  of  Anglo-Saxon  England. 
The  noble  early  stone  carving  of  Northumbria,  commonly 
assigned  to  VII,  is  put  down  to  supposed  foreign  workmen 
brought  over  by  the  wealthy  and  energetic  Wilfrid.  Irish 
calligraphists  have  been  assumed  as  the  illuminators  of  the 
Gospels  of  Lindisfarne.  The  beautiful  embossed  silver 
'  Ormside '  bowl  at  York  is  attributed  to  Alexandria.  In 
an  earlier  period  the  fine  disc-shaped  inlaid  brooches  so  com- 


6  INTRODUCTORY 

mon  in  Kent  have  been  suspected  of  a  Frankish  provenance  ; 
at  a  later  date  the  gold  and  enamel  work  of  the  { Alfred  '  jewel 
and  the  exquisite  needlework  of  the  embroideries  found  in 
St.  Cuthbert's  coffin  at  Durham  are  called  by  c  that  blessed 
word '  '  Byzantine.'  Yet  there  is  very  substantial  evidence, 
some  of  it  as  cogent  as  archaeology  ever  offers,  that  most  of 
these  masterpieces,  together  with  the  rest  of  the  artistic  work 
of  which  they  are  only  the  finest  examples,  are  the  production 
of  homestaying  Anglo-Saxon  craftsmen. 

Wilfrid's  '  foreign  workmen '  may  very  well  be  figments 
of  the  imagination  of  later  writers  for  the  only  really  contem- 
porary authority  for  the  details  of  his  life  says  nothing  about 
such  an  importation,  but  even  if  he  had  brought  over  crafts- 
men from  Gaul,  as  was  done  by  his  contemporary  and  friend 
Benedict  Biscop,  how  can  they  have  carved  the  Ruthwell  and 
Bewcastle  crosses  ?  The  peculiar  ornamentation  on  these  does 
not  occur  on  Gallic  monuments.  M.  Enlart,  whose  know- 
ledge of  early  French  sculpture  is  unrivalled,  finds  in  them 
nothing  that  reminds  him  of  contemporary  work  in  France. 
They  have  inscriptions  on  them  in  Northumbrian  runes  which 
Gallic  or  Italian  workmen  could  not  even  read.  The  ques- 
tion of  the  provenance  of  the  Ormside  bowl  is  a  difficult 
one,  but  the  design  and  certain  details  of  the  technique 
are  not  antique  but  Teutonic.  The  name  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  abbot  who  wrote  the  Gospels  of  Lindisfarne  about 
700  a.d.  has  been  preserved  in  a  later  but  well-attested  in- 
scription in  the  volume  itself.  The  fine  Kentish  brooches 
of  a  century  earlier  are  strikingly  different  in  certain  marked 
characteristics  of  material,  technique,  and  style  from  those 
of  Merovingian  Gaul,  and  the  leading  French  archaeolo- 
gists agree  with  our  own  that  the  two  are  quite  distinct  and 
independent  though  of  course  based  on  a  common  tradition. 
The  famous  'Alfred '  jewel  in  the  Ashmolean  at  Oxford,  when 
minutely  examined,  reveals  an  inexperienced  hand  in  the 
fashioning  of  the  cloisons  for  the  enamel  that  was  certainly 


ORIGINALITY  IN  TEUTONIC  ART  7 

not  the  hand  of  a  Byzantine  goldsmith,  and  as  for  the  Durham 
embroideries,  there  are  inscriptions  worked  on  the  very  pieces 
themselves  which  give  the  names  of  the  Queen  of  Edward 
the  Elder  who  caused  them  to  be  made,  and  of  the  Bishop  of 
Winchester  to  whom  they  were  a  royal  gift ;  and  not  only  are 
these  inscriptions  like  all  the  rest  of  the  wording  on  the  vest- 
ments in  Latin  and  not  in  Greek,  but  the  name  of  the  bishop, 
Frithestan,  is  written  with  the  characteristic  Saxonized  half- 
runic  capital  TH(D)  which  no  foreign  workman  would  have 
used. 

These  objects,  which  we  can  be  practically  certain  are  of 
Anglo-Saxon  and  not  of  continental  provenance,  are  in  qualities 
of  design  and  execution  of  very  high  merit.  When  we  come 
to  examine  them  in  a  later  volume  of  this  work  we  shall  find 
them  above  the  average  of  the  best  things  of  the  kind  made  at 
the  time  elsewhere  in  Europe,  and  worthy  to  be  selected  for 
any  choice  collection  of  masterpieces  that  might  be  formed  by 
a  committee  of  connoisseurs. 

Apart  from  these  exceptional  pieces  there  is  a  very  large 
body  of  work  of  a  less  distinguished  kind  that  on  the  one 
hand  can  be  proved  to  be  Anglo-Saxon,  and  on  the  other  hand 
must  be  accepted  by  all  impartial  judges  as  reaching  a  fairly 
high  standard  of  artistic  and  technical  merit.  This  may  be 
tested  in  the  matter  ( 1 )  of  originality,  (2)  of  intrinsic  qualities 
of  design,  and  (3)  of  workmanlike  execution. 

As  regards  the  first  question,  that  of  originality,  it  must 
be  asked  first  of  all  about  Teutonic  art  as  a  whole  in  relation 
to  other  earlier  or  contemporary  artistic  developments,  and 
next  about  Anglo-Saxon  art  viewed  as  one  among  several  local 
manifestations  of  the  artistic  activity  of  the  various  branches  of 
the  Germanic  race. 

It  must  be  understood  at  the  outset  that  none  of  the 
German  decorative  art  of  the  migration  period  is  in  the  strict 
sense  original,  for  of  no  motive  which  appears  therein  can  it 
be  said  that  it  is  really  new.     It  must  be  remembered  however 


8  INTRODUCTORY 

that  absolute  originality  in  art,  though  it  does  exist,  is  far 
rarer  than  we  might  at  first  sight  suppose.  One  example  is 
the  use  of  decorative  motives  drawn  from  the  life  of  the  sea  in 
the  old  Aegean  or  Mycenaean  art  now  so  popular.  Another  is 
the  acanthus  ornament  of  the  Greeks  ;  a  third  the  naturalistic 
foliage  ornament  on  the  early  Gothic  churches.  These  are 
clear  instances  of  invention,  not  of  the  development  of  pre- 
existing traditions.  In  the  vast  majority  of  cases  however  an 
individual  artist  or  an  artistic  people  or  school  builds  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent  upon  what  has  gone  before,  and  how- 
ever fresh  and  striking  may  be  the  resultant  product,  it  cannot 
be  called  in  the  severe  and  literal  sense  original.  Looked  at 
from  this  point  of  view  neither  the  art  of  Greece  nor  that  of 
Japan  is  strictly  original,  nor  again  is  the  accomplished  decora- 
tive art  of  the  Late-Celtic  period.  The  Greeks  took  over 
from  older  peoples  the  elements  on  which  they  worked  to 
produce  the  most  beautiful  art  the  world  has  yet  seen.  Every 
fresh  investigation  into  the  questions  of  origin  in  oriental  art 
extends  our  view  of  the  debt  owed  by  the  arts  of  Japan  to 
those  of  China,  of  which  they  are  now  regarded  as  a  pallid 
reflex !  On  Celtic  originality  the  late  Mr.  Romilly  Allen, 
who  would  do  full  justice  to  the  artists  of  his  choice,  has  tjie 
following  remarks :  '  Although  the  Celts  never  seem  to  have 
invented  any  new  ideas,  they  possessed  an  extraordinary  apti- 
tude for  picking  up  ideas  from  the  different  peoples  with 
whom  war  or  commerce  brought  them  into  contact.  And 
once  the  Celt  had  borrowed  an  idea  from  his  neighbour,  he 
was  able  to  give  it  such  a  strong  Celtic  tinge  that  it  soon 
became  something  so  different  from  what  it  was  originally  as 
to  be  almost  unrecognizable.'  He  speaks  too  of  c  the  tendency 
of  the  Celt  to  copy  rather  than  invent.'  Originality  in  art 
accordingly,  in  the  ordinary  work-a-day  sense,  does  not  neces- 
sarily depend  on  first-hand  invention,  but  on  the  extent  to 
which  the  borrowed  or  inherited  suggestion  can  be  developed 
into  some  new  and   striking    contribution   to   the   aesthetic 


FOREIGN  ELEMENTS  IN  GERMANIC  ART  9 

treasures  of  mankind.  The  Greeks,  the  Japanese,  the  Celts, 
have  all  made  such  contributions.  What  they  accomplished  is 
something  which  had  never  been  done  before  and  can  never 
be  repeated.  The  individuality  of  creative  genius  is  stamped 
upon  the  product,  and  when  we  call  it  by  the  name  of  the 
people  that  gave  it  birth  and  by  no  other  name  we  are  assert- 
ing that  it  is,  in  the  broad  and  rational  sense  here  contended 
for,  an  original  product. 

Applying  this  test  to  Germanic  art,  of  which  Anglo-Saxon 
art  is  a  subdivision,  we  find  that  it  fulfils  it.  Though  com- 
pacted of  many  elements  drawn  from  different  sources,  the  art 
possesses  a  specific  character  that  is  not  Celtic  and  not  classical 
but  Germanic.  Throughout  the  period  a  native  taste  was 
actively  at  work  modifying  the  imported  elements  and  impart- 
ing to  everything  a  Teutonic  colour,  so  that  the  result  stands 
out  as  a  distinct  contribution  to  the  sum  of  our  aesthetic 
possessions. 

The  foreign  elements  here  spoken  of  may  for  the  present 
purpose  be  regarded  in  a  broad  view  as  Celtic,  classical,  and 
oriental.  The  word  Celtic  may  be  permitted  here  to  denote 
the  cultures  known  to  archaeologists  as  those  of  Hallstatt  and 
La  Tene.  They  belong  to  the  Early  Iron  Age  but  naturally 
embody  certain  elements  surviving  from  the  earlier  Bronze 
Age  culture,  and  they  may  be  regarded  as  predominant  in 
central  Europe  during  the  centuries  immediately  prior  to 
the  Christian  era.  When  Rome  began  her  conquests  to  the 
north  and  west  in  the  last  fifty  years  B.C.,  there  opened  a 
period  during  which  for  two  or  three  centuries  the  influence 
of  Roman  art  was  predominant  in  the  Gauls  and  in  Romanized 
Britain,  and  made  itself  felt  in  force  as  far  north  as  southern 
Scandinavia.  So  overmastering  was  it  that  in  Gaul  Roman 
fashions  in  ornament  and  technique  superseded  the  older  ones 
of  the  La  Tene  tradition,  and  the  Late-Celtic  art  which 
flourished  in  those  regions  at  the  time  of  Caesar's  conquests 
was  driven  across  the  Channel  and  took  refuge  in   the  north 


io  INTRODUCTORY 

and  west  of  the  British  Isles,  where,  after  a  comparatively  un- 
fruitful period,  it  blossomed  out  in  VII  and  VIII  a.d.  into  a 
wonderful  aesthetic  activity  in  carving,  in  metal  work,  and  in 
the  illumination  of  manuscripts.  At  the  same  time  we  must 
remember  that  in  pre-Christian  as  well  as  in  Early  Christian 
times  the  way  was  always  open  for  oriental,  Iranian,  Greco- 
Scythian,  and  perhaps  Siberian  influence  to  stream  inwards 
towards  the  north-west.  Open  plains  stretch  continuously 
from  the  Caucasus  and  Ural  Mountains  to  the  North  Sea,  and 
some  antiquaries  believe  that  this  vast  superficies  formed  a 
single  archaeological  area,  so  that  this  fact  would  suffice  to 
account  for  the  Greco-Scythian  gold  find  at  Vettersfeld  in  the 
Nieder  Lausitz,  without  the  hypothesis  of  any  merely  for- 
tuitous importation.  The  antiquities  found  in  the  Isle  of 
Gotland,  in  the  Baltic  to  the  east  of  the  southern  part  of 
Sweden,  are  a  striking  testimony  to  the  ancient  intercourse 
between  the  East  and  the  Baltic  lands. 

The  Teutonic  art  of  the  migration  period,  covering 
chronologically  four  or  five  centuries  from  the  third  onwards, 
may  have  been  affected  by  classical,  by  oriental,  and  by  Celtic 
traditions  before  it  took  form  and  substance  of  its  own.  Of 
these  influences  the  classical  presents  itself  at  once  as  for 
obvious  reasons  the  most  important.  There  was  considerable 
intercourse  between  the  Romans  and  the  Teutons  before  the 
movements  of  migration  began,  and  some  of  the  latter  had 
lived  for  a  long  time  on  the  very  borders  of  the  Empire.  Into 
the  remoter  parts  of  Germany,  as  we  have  just  seen,  Roman 
culture  penetrated,  and  as  an  illustration  of  this  it  may  be 
mentioned  that  in  Denmark  alone  about  a  hundred  Roman 
bronze  vessels  have  been  found  that  were  imported  during  the 
first  centuries  of  the  Christian  era.  An  art  that  is  known  as 
*  provincial-Roman '  flourished  on  the  borders  of  the  Empire 
on  the  side  where  the  northern  barbarians  lived,  and  the  pro- 
ductions of  the  workshops  thus  established  permeated  all  the 
regions  from  the  Rhine  to  the  Baltic.     This  being  the  case, 


THE  ROMAN  INFLUENCE  u 

we  can  easily  understand  the  view  of  those  who  would  credit 
Roman  influence  with  the  creation  of  the  Teutonic  art  with 
which  these  pages  have  to  deal.  There  are  some  who,  like  the 
late  Alois  Riegl  of  Vienna,  see  Rome  everywhere,  and  would 
regard  all  the  artistic  development  of  the  migration  period  as 
merely  a  phase  of  late  classical  art,  blossoming  out  perhaps 
into  new  forms  but  only  into  such  forms  as  were  prepared  for 
in  provincial-Roman  workshops.  On  Riegl's  general  theory 
something  was  said  in  the  writer's  previous  essay  on  Teutonic 
art,1  and  there  is  no  occasion  to  repeat  this  here,  so  that  it  is 
only  necessary  to  say  in  this  place  that  Roman  models  and 
examples  certainly  count  for  much  in  the  art  with  which  we 
are  concerned.  It  would  be  absurd  to  deny  Roman  influence 
in  the  art  of  the  Teutonic  migrations,  or  to  attempt  to  reduce 
it  below  a  reasonable  level.  Roman  influence  not  only  existed 
but  it  bulked  largely  in  the  completed  result.  We  might 
almost  call  it, 

'  Gross  as  a  mountain,  open,  palpable,' 

yet  at  the  same  time  it  was  not  an  overpowering  influence  ; 
it  certainly  did  not  preclude  initiative  on  the  part  of  the 
Teutonic  craftsmen  themselves,  nor  bar  the  way  to  the  recep- 
tion of  other  streams  of  influence  setting  in  from  non-classical 
regions,  and  it  does  not  make  it  inaccurate  to  characterize  the 
art  as  a  whole  in  the  terms  used  to  describe  it  here  as  an 
essentially  Germanic  art  marked  throughout  by  a  common 
Teutonic  stamp. 

Of  the  influences  other  than  Roman  just  spoken  of,  by  far 
the  most  important  is  that  coming  from  the  south-east.  This 
may  be  regarded  as  a  stream  fed  from  several  different  sources, 
but  starting  on  its  course  towards  north-western  Europe  from 
the  lands  in  southern  Russia  north  of  the  Black  Sea.  Later 
on,  especially  in  Chapter  x  dealing  with  inlaid  gold  jewellery, 
we  shall  see  how  oriental  elements  appear  from  the  very  first 

1  Arts  and  Crafts  of  our  Teutonic  Forefathers,  Ch.  ix. 


i2  INTRODUCTORY 

in  Teutonic  art  and  are  as  much  in  evidence  as  Roman,  and 
did  space  allow  an  attempt  might  be  made  to  distinguish  the 
different  runlets  of  influence  that  unite  to  form  the  stream 
just  spoken  of.  Here  it  is  enough  to  indicate  the  view, 
opposed  to  that  of  Alois  Riegl  and  his  school,  that  we  have 
from  the  first  to  reckon  with  this  oriental  element  in  early 
Teutonic  art  and  must  regard  it  as  on  the  whole  wellnigh  as 
important  as  the  elements  derived  from  the  classical  world. 

In  the  case  of  the  Celtic  tradition  spoken  of  a  couple  of 
pages  back,  Celtic  art  of  the  La  Tene  period  was  as  we  have 
just  seen  in  Europe  generally  put  almost  out  of  existence  by 
the  provincial-Roman  art  which  followed  the  conquest  of  the 
legions.  Hence  in  the  continental  examples  of  Germanic  art 
Celtic  influence  is  very  hard  to  trace,  though  in  our  own 
country  the  case  is  somewhat  different.  This  it  will  be  re- 
membered was  the  home  of  the  after  developments  of  the  Late- 
Celtic  art  in  which  it  blossomed  out  into  its  most  elaborate 
and  beautiful  forms,  and  that  the  Romans  appreciated  the 
tasteful  productions  in  this  style  which  their  residence  here 
brought  within  their  reach  is  shown  by  the  discovery  in  the 
Roman  station  of  Aesica  on  the  Hadrianic  Wall  of  a  gilded 
bronze  fibula  which  Sir  Arthur  Evans  holds  to  be  one  of  the 
finest  existing  examples  of  the  style.  It  is  figured  later  on 
PL  lii,  3  (p.  293).  Specimens  of  Late-Celtic  ornamental  work 
are  found  sparingly  in  Anglo-Saxon  graves,  notably  in  the 
form  of  certain  enamelled  plaques  that  were  attached  to  a 
special  class  of  bronze  bowls,  duly  discussed  in  the  sequel 
(Chapter  ix),  and  there  are  evidences  also  of  a  Celtic  influence 
on  particular  classes  of  Anglo-Saxon  work  which  it  is  interest- 
ing to  trace.  This  of  course  applies  only  to  the  pagan  period 
with  which  the  present  two  volumes  are  concerned.  When 
the  Christian  period  of  Anglo-Saxon  culture  opens,  the  rela- 
tions between  the  Germanic  art  of  the  immigrants  and  the 
Late-Celtic  art  of  the  indigenous  inhabitants  of  the  western 
and  northern  parts  of  the  British  Isles  become  very  intimate 


GERMANIC  ANIMAL  ORNAMENT  13 

and  complex,  and  will  furnish  material  for  discussion  in  the 
subsequent  portion  of  this  work. 

It  is  clear  therefore  that  Germanic  art  as  a  whole  is  not  an 
absolutely  original  product,  but  at  the  same  time  the  non- 
Teutonic  elements  were  so  modified  by  the  racial  genius  that 
they  took  on  a  Germanic  character,  and  the  resulting  art  stands 
out  as  a  distinct  aesthetic  entity.  In  connection  with  this 
question  of  originality  a  word  must  be  said  about  Germanic 
animal  ornament,  on  which  Bernhard  Salin  has  written  that  it 
1  will  always  remain  for  all  time  a  most  characteristic  expres- 
sion of  the  German  imagination,'  while  Dr.  Sophus  Miiller 
calls  it  *  the  only  really  original  form  of  art  created  by  the 
prehistoric  peoples  north  of  the  Alps.'  The  reference  of 
course  is  to  the  extraordinary  treatment  of  the  animal  form 
in  which  it  is  broken  up  into  a  congeries  of  curious  shapes  the 
resemblance  of  which  to  parts  of  living  creatures  is  hard  to 
discern.  On  these  designs  a  good  deal  will  have  to  be  said  in 
the  chapter  on  Ornamentation,  but  it  may  be  noticed  here  that 
distinctively  Teutonic  as  these  motives  become,  they  are  in 
their  origin  based  on  animal  forms  occurring  in  classical  art. 
These  Roman  forms  are  at  first  copied  by  the  Germanic 
craftsman  in  more  or  less  naturalistic  fashion,  and  it  is  only 
subsequently  that  they  become  Teutonized.  Of  this  char- 
acteristic animal  ornament  accordingly  it  must  be  said  that, 
original  as  it  is,  it  is  only  original  in  its  development  and  not 
in  its  inception,  and  does  not  furnish  any  real  exception  to 
what  has  been  said  about  Germanic  art  as  a  whole. 

There  are  other  forms  of  animal  ornament  on  which  this 
same  question  of  origin  may  be  raised.  The  specially 
'  Germanic '  style  is  not  the  only  style  in  which  throughout 
the  period  this  theme  is  handled.  In  every  case  for  example 
in  which  the  craftsman,  be  he  pagan  or  Christian,  has  been 
influenced  by  examples  of  Early  Christian  art,  we  obtain  fairly 
orthodox  work  in  the  delineation  of  animals.  For  example 
there  are  certain  ornamented  buckles,  not  found  in  this  country 


i4  INTRODUCTORY 

but  of  common  appearance  in  Burgundian  graves,1  on  which 
there  are  figure  designs  ultimately  derived  from  representations 
on  Early  Christian  carved  sarcophagi  of  Daniel  in  the  den  of 
lions.  The  animals  here  are  grotesque  enough,  but  they  are 
intelligible  creatures  who  '  wear  their  backbones,'  possess  the 
proper  number  of  limbs,  and  could  stand  or  move  without 
falling  to  pieces.  These  are  undoubtedly  influenced  by  the 
art  encouraged  by  the  Church,  that  everywhere  save  in  Celtic 
lands  rested  on  Roman  civilization,  and  are  quite  different 
from  the  animals  of  the  pagan  tradition  just  referred  to. 

Another  form  of  animal  art  that  springs  from  its  own 
sources  and  obeys  its  own  laws  is  that  which  we  shall  find 
exemplified  on  the  early  Anglo-Saxon  coins.  This  does  not 
follow  the  sequence  of  typological  changes  the  canons  of 
which  Dr.  Salin  has  established  in  his  well-known  work,2  but 
is  in  such  striking  disaccord  with  these  that  it  is  clear  that  the 
designers  of  the  coins  were  quite  different  people  from  the 
makers  of  the  fibulae  and  buckles  on  which  this  conventional 
Germanic  beast  ornament  is  in  evidence.  Birds  for  example 
we  find  treated  on  the  coins  with  a  grace  and  liveliness  that 
leave  nothing  to  be  desired,  while  the  quadrupeds  though  at 
times  grotesque  or  maimed  are  in  other  cases  quite  natural, 
well  composed,  and  spirited.  These  are  perhaps  more  original 
than  any  other  motives  used  in  the  art,  though  here  again  their 
ultimate  source  may  be  the  devices  on  Roman  coins. 

The  curious  fact  here  emerges  that  some  of  these  well- 
designed  animals  were  being  cut  upon  the  coin  dies  at  the  very 
time  when  the  contemporary  goldsmith  was  dotting  the  field 
of  his  design  with  the  *  disjecta  membra '  of  creatures  which 
were  in  doubt  whether  they  were  mammals  or  lizards  ;  or 
twisting    together    elongated    bodies   in    ingenious    patterns 

1  A  characteristic  example  is  figured  PI.  lii,  6  (p.  293),  and  M.  Besson 
illustrates  many  of  the  pieces  in  his  work  V  Art  Barbare  dans  V Ancien 
'Diocese  de  Lausanne,  Lausanne,  1909. 

2  Altgermanische  Tbierornamentik. 


VARIETIES  IN  CONTEMPORARY  WORK  15 

wherein  all  reference  to  nature  had  been  dismissed  from 
among  the  artist's  obligations.  In  view  of  this  the  theory- 
may  be  hazarded  that  in  those  days  sets  of  workmen  carried 
on  their  operations  in  water-tight  compartments,  or,  to  im- 
prove the  metaphor,  ran  in  strings,  so  that  each  followed  his 
own  special  course  without  impinging  on  the  line  of  progress 
of  the  others.  As  a  very  striking  illustration  of  what  is  meant 
reference  may  be  made  to  what  happened  at  Lindisfarne  at  the 
close  of  VII.  Two  important  works  of  art  were  there  at  that 
time  in  progress,  executed  by  members  of  the  same  com- 
munity, for  the  same  purpose  of  honouring  the  deceased 
hero-saint  Cuthbert,  but  in  different  materials  and  on  distinct 
artistic  traditions.  One  work  was  the  enriched  wooden  coffin 
that  was  to  hold  the  body  of  the  saint,  the  other  the  Book  of 
Gospels  that  was  written  and  illuminated  for  his  glorification. 
On  the  first  there  is  incised  [figure  work  almost  childish  in  its 
homely  crudity,  in  the  latter  linear  and  conventional  ornament 
drawn  and  painted  with  a  skill  and  finish  in  design  and  execu- 
tion that  have  never  been  surpassed.  Were  not  these  two 
works  both  authentically  dated  and  fixed  to  a  known  locality 
it  would  never  have  occurred  to  anyone  to  imagine  any  con- 
nection between  them,  and  even  in  face  of  the  known  facts  of 
the  situation  it  is  hard  to  realize  that  they  were  practically 
contemporary  and  were  carried  out  within  the  same  walls. 

These  facts  convey  a  very  useful  lesson  that  all  students  of 
the  art  of  this  period  should  take  to  heart.  It  is  quite  true  that 
as  a  general  rule  to  each  epoch  and  each  region  there  belongs 
a  particular  kind  of  work,  and  that  the  style  of  the  work  pro- 
duced varies  in  general  character  and  in  detail  from  period  to 
period.  Typological  science  has  reduced  these  variations  to 
an  orderly  sequence,  and  observation  and  criticism  have  estab- 
lished the  general  truth  of  the  laws  thus  laid  down.  What  it 
behoves  us  to  remember  is  that  it  is  perfectly  possible  for  work 
of  very  different  kinds  to  be  going  on  at  the  same  time,  and 
that  the  general  law  is  not  a  law  of  rigid  application.    Bernhard 


16  INTRODUCTORY 

Salin  himself  points  out  that  there  were  other  ways  of  treating 
the  animal  form  in  the  period  apart  from  the  specially 
1  Germanic  '  style  which  he  analyses.1 

On  the  subject  of  origins  in  Germanic  art  as  a  whole 
enough  has  now  been  said.  Within  the  wide  area  thus 
defined  there  are  distinct  artistic  provinces  in  which  the 
common  forms  and  motives  are  worked  out  into  products  each 
of  which  has  its  local  '  cachet.'  One  of  these  provinces  is 
Anglo-Saxon  England,  and  here  we  find  quite  as  much  that  is 
*  original '  as  appears  in  any  other  province,  Gothic,  Frankish, 
or  Alamannic.  It  is  just  as  important  to  vindicate  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  Anglo-Saxon  craftsman  in  face  of  his  conti- 
nental brethren  as  it  is  to  establish  the  distinctive  position  of 
Germanic  art  in  general  in  face  of  the  art  of  the  classical  and 
Celtic  peoples.  A  good  part  of  what  follows  has  for  one  of 
its  main  objects  the  establishment  of  our  national  autonomy  in 
art  in  the  early  mediaeval  period,  and  here  it  only  needs  to  be 
said  that  the  insular  craftsman  is  no  mere  copyist  or  dependent, 
no  ape  of  Merovingian  fashions,  but  has  his  own  ways  of 
laying  out  and  of  accomplishing  his  work,  so  that  when  he  is 
following  his  own  vein  he  achieves  results  that  are  not  only 
characteristically  distinct  from  those  found  in  other  Teutonic 
districts  but  in  the  qualities  of  design  and  execution  can  more 
than  hold  their  own. 

In  the  course  of  the  following  chapters  there  will  be 
opportunities  for  comparing  the  products  of  Anglo-Saxon 
craftsmanship  with  continental  work  of  the  same  kind  and 
period,  and  to  aid  the  reader  in  this  a  certain  number  of 
selected  specimens  of  Germanic  work  from  different  European 
regions  have  been  reproduced  on  the  plates.  The  purpose 
here  however  is  not  to  make  these  local  comparisons,  but  to 
envisage  for  a  moment  from  another  point  of  view  Germanic 
art  as  a  whole,  and  to  apply  an  aesthetic  standard  to  its  intrinsic 
qualities  of  design. 

1    Thierornamentik,  p.  290. 


AESTHETIC  VALUE  OF  GERMANIC  ART  17 

It  would  of  course  be  unfair  to  measure  this  art  by  the 
canons  that  befit  the  art  of  Greece  or  of  old  Egypt  or  of 
China.  It  is  all  along  barbaric  art,  making  no  pretence  to 
ascend  heights  or  sound  depths  in  expressiveness,  nor  to  present 
forms  of  abstract  beauty  or  of  elusive  charm.  The  standard 
to  apply  is  rather  that  of  Celtic  art,  between  which  and 
Teutonic  art  a  comparison  is  readily  drawn. 

Amongst  others  who  have  essayed  this  is  Mr.  Romilly 
Allen,  whose  judgement  is  recorded  in  his  book  on  Celtic  art. 
He  finds  Germanic,  or  rather  Anglo-Saxon,  work  as  com- 
pared with  Celtic  weak  in  its  design,  which  is  wanting  in 
imagination  and  in  flexible  quality.  As  concerns  the  mass  of 
the  tomb  furniture  this  is  no  doubt  true,  but  we  must  not  lose 
sight  of  the  fact  that  in  the  devices  on  Anglo-Saxon  coins  there 
is  evidence  of  an  alertness  in  fancy,  of  a  tact  in  display  and 
composition,  that  are  quite  up  to  the  Celtic  standard  of  what 
is  bright  and  effective.  Where  the  Celtic  artist  shows  his 
superiority  is  in  his  feeling  for  line,  and  in  his  use  of  the 
contrast  between  plain  and  enriched  passages  on  an  ornamental 
surface.  A  feeling  for  line  is  a  very  high  aesthetic  quality,  and 
the  contriver  of  those  splendid  flamboyant  curves  that  sweep 
through  Late-Celtic  designs  possessed  the  quality  in  very 
ample  measure.  There  is  a  reserve  moreover  in  his  schemes 
of  enrichment,  and  he  will  employ  plain  spaces  to  rest  the  eye 
and  to  add  by  their  contrast  richness  to  those  parts  where  the 
detail  is  complex  and  varied. 

When  compared  with  work  of  this  order  the  contours  and 
masses  of  the  Germanic  artist's  conventional  beast  ornament 
have  no  claim  to  be  regarded  as  artistic  expression  in  line  or 
form,  but  only  as  the  enrichment  of  a  surface  by  a  sort  of 
uncertain  dappling.  It  should  be  said  on  the  other  side  that 
the  surfaces  of  the  inlaid  jewels  exhibit  no  such  uncertainty, 
but  are  clear  and  crisp  in  their  working  ;  striking  is  the  con- 
trast of  the  bright  gold  and  the  deep  crimson  of  the  garnet, 
relieved  with  flashing  gleams  from  the  polished,  foil   below  ; 

III  B 


18  INTRODUCTORY 

the  touches  of  blue  and  green  are  tactfully  introduced  on  the 
field  of  gold  and  red.  It  is  however  at  best  an  '  all  over  ' 
effect  that  is  compassed,  of  a  type  common  everywhere  in 
barbaric  design,  where  there  is  no  room  for  the  vacant  space. 
In  certain  of  the  brooches  in  cast  bronze,  such  as  the  example 
shown  on  PI.  xliv  (p.  268),  there  is  a  reserve  in  the  treat- 
ment that  makes  for  nobility  ;  bronze  bowls  like  the  fine 
example  at  Wilton  House,  Wilts,  PI.  cxviii  (p.  474),  have  a 
simple  dignity  that  is  quite  Roman,  and  other  specimens  will 
come  before  us  on  which  the  aesthetic  critic  may  pass  a 
favourable  judgement.  When  all  is  said  however,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  while  the  design  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  craftsman 
maintains  a  very  fair  artistic  standard  it  can  claim  no  super- 
lative degree  of  merit. 

The  strongest  side  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  art  of  the  pagan 
period  is  its  technique.  This  may  be  surprising  to  those  who 
cannot  dissociate  from  the  gentile  name  some  idea  of  the 
uncouth.  It  is  known  to  all  that  there  is  a  noble  early 
Anglo-Saxon  literature,  and  the  artist  of  the  period  might 
easily  be  credited  with  design  in  which  vigour  and  thought 
were  wedded  to  a  certain  rudeness  of  execution.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  the  design  is  as  a  rule  inexpressive,  but  the  technical 
finish  is  beyond  cavil.  A  workmanlike  handling  of  the  various 
processes  of  casting,  chasing,  soldering,  gem-cutting,  and  the 
rest,  is  almost  everywhere  in  evidence,  and  minute  finish,  in 
which  there  is  at  the  same  time  nothing  meticulous,  proves 
that  eyes  were  precise  and  fingers  delicate.  So  much  attention 
will  be  paid  in  what  follows  to  questions  of  technique  that 
nothing  more  need  here  be  added.  Examples  in  abundance 
will  show  as  we  proceed  that  the  technical  qualities  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  work  confer  on  it  an  unquestioned  patent  of  distinction. 

These  propositions,  that  Anglo-Saxon  artistic  work  is 
really  of  native  provenance,  that  it  exhibits  an  independent 
treatment  of  the  motives  common  to  Germanic  art  as  a  whole, 
and  that  in  qualities  of  design  and  execution  it  is  in  the  main 


DIVISION  OF  THE  MATERIAL  19 

equal  to  the  best  achievements  of  the  period,  may  be  brought 
to  the  test  if  we  take  one  special  form  of  art  that  can  be  proved 
to  be  of  insular  growth  if  not  of  insular  invention,  and  which 
affords  an  opportunity  for  a  critique  of  the  native  artist's 
capacity  both  in  design  and  execution.  The  form  of  art  in 
question  is  one  that  has  already  been  signalized  for  its  excep- 
tional interest — the  art  of  coinage.  Coinage  as  we  shall 
presently  see  represents  both  the  earlier  and  the  later  periods 
of  Anglo-Saxon  culture,  and  it  displays  at  all  epochs  that 
originality  and  that  aesthetic  merit  which  have  just  been  claimed 
for  our  insular  art  as  a  whole.  In  the  second  Chapter  of  this 
volume  accordingly  a  place  is  made  for  a  full  treatment  of  the 
early  Anglo-Saxon  coinage,  and  it  is  hoped  that  this  will  avail 
to  vindicate  in  the  reader's  mind  at  the  outset  the  artistic 
character  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  from  the  popular  misconception 
on  which  the  necessary  caution  has  now  been  given. 

Attention  has  already  been  called  to  the  somewhat  embar- 
rassing abundance  of  the  material  with  which  we  have  to  deal. 
A  fortunate  circumstance  simplifies  the  task  before  us,  for 
speaking  generally  the  whole  material  divides  itself  naturally 
into  two  main  groups,  the  one  belonging  to  the  earlier  pagan 
the  other  to  the  later  Christian  period.  This  general  state- 
ment is  however  subject  to  two  qualifications.  There  is  in 
the  first  place  one  particular  form  of  Anglo-Saxon  art  that 
runs  through  both  periods  alike  and  that  makes  a  unity  of  the 
whole.  The  art  referred  to  is  this  of  coinage,  which,  begin- 
ning amidst  pagan  associations,  is  represented  by  copious 
productions  through  all  the  successive  Christian  periods  until 
the  Norman  Conquest.  Even  here  however  there  is  a  natural 
division  between  the  earlier  coins  corresponding  broadly  to  the 
pagan  period,  and  those  of  later  date  which  are  of  a  different 
form  and  denomination. 

In  the  second  place  the  two  phases  of  Anglo-Saxon  art, 
pagan  and  Christian,  cannot  be  absolutely  separated  in  point 


20  INTRODUCTORY 

of  time,  because  during  the  best  part  of  a  century  they  over- 
lap. The  former  phase  is  represented  by  tomb  furniture  con- 
sisting in  objects  placed  according  to  pagan  practice  beside  the 
body  or  its  ashes  in  the  sepulchre.  This  custom  was  opposed 
to  the  principles  and  practice  of  the  Church,  and  after  the 
conversion  in  VII  it  gradually  passed  out  of  use  ;  it  was 
however  so  inveterate  a  custom  that  it  lasted  on  for  a  con- 
siderable time  even  among  peoples  indoctrinated  in  the  new 
faith.  As  a  matter  of  strict  logic  Christians  should  have  been 
interred  without  grave  furniture,  but  as  a  fact  the  habit  of 
clothing  and  equipping  the  corpse  was  only  by  very  slow  stages 
relinquished.  A  saint  so  austere  in  his  religiosity  as  St. 
Cuthbert  was  yet  buried  in  rich  vestments  with  his  jewelled 
reliquary  cross  at  his  breast  and  his  portable  altar,  and  this 
was  at  the  end  of  VII  when  Christianity  had  for  a  hundred 
years  been  preached  in  the  land.  More  than  a  century  later 
the  body  of  Charles  the  Great  was  accompanied  in  the  tomb 
by  a  collection  of  precious  objects  that  maintained  the  ancient 
tradition.  Indeed  in  the  case  of  the  chalice  interred  with  the 
priest  and  the  arms  of  the  warrior  hung  up  over  his  sarcophagus  • 
the  practice  survived  into  the  later  middle  ages.  Hence  it 
follows  that  while  a  good  many  of  the  objects  dealt  with  in 
these  chapters  do  not  in  strictness  belong  to  the  pagan  period, 
they  represent  this  period  just  as  well  as  those  actually  of 
pagan  date.  Upon  some  may  be  observed  Christian  designs 
or  symbols,  but  to  comparatively  few  even  of  these  objects 
can  be  attributed  any  distinctively  religious  use  or  significance. 
In  most  cases  the  forms  are  traditional  and  the  cross  or  other 
Christian  suggestion  is  decoratively  or  perhaps  superstitiously 
employed  without  serious  theological  import.  In  other  words, 
so  long  as  tomb  furniture  in  general  survives  as  a  custom,  the 
objects  composing  it  belong  essentially  to  the  pagan  period 
and  are  of  a  character  distinct  in  the  main  from  those  of  the 
succeeding  epoch. 

The  most  important  by  far  of  these  later  objects  are  essen- 


THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY  21 

tially  and  avowedly  Christian  in  origin,  form,  and  use.  The 
two  chief  classes  are  carved  crosses  or  sepulchral  stones  and 
illuminated  manuscripts,  and  both  of  these  are  creatures  of 
the  ecclesiastical  system  and  were  in  the  pagan  period  entirely 
unknown.  It  is  true  that  Danish  paganism  is  represented  by 
characteristic  forms  of  arms  and  a  few  other  objects,  while 
personal  ornaments  such  as  rings  and  bracelets  are  a  good  deal 
in  evidence  in  the  centuries  from  IX  to  XL  Coins  too  con- 
tinue to  the  end  to  represent  Anglo-Saxon  art  on  the  secular 
side,  but  most  surviving  objects  from  the  later  centuries  could 
claim  benefit  of  clergy  through  the  presence  in  them  of  the 
religious  element.  Hence  it  follows  that  the  whole  material 
embracing  the  decorative  and  industrial  arts  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  falls  of  itself  into  the  two  main  groups  here  indicated, 
the  one  representing  the  earlier  pagan  the  other  the  later 
Christian  period,  and  in  correspondence  with  this  division  the 
two  volumes  now  issued  embrace  the  treatment  of  the  tomb 
furniture  on  the  same  lines  as  those  followed  with  the  archi- 
tecture, while  the  carved  stones  and  manuscripts  with  the  later 
objects  of  a  more  secular  kind  are  left  for  a  subsequent  and 
final  instalment  of  the  work. 

The  review  in  the  second  Chapter  of  the  early  coinage  will 
it  is  hoped  set  in  its  true  light  the  question  of  the  artistic 
merit  of  Anglo-Saxon  craftsmanship,  and  will  prepare  the  way 
for  the  treatment  of  the  main  theme  of  the  present  volumes, 
the  tomb  furniture  found  in  the  early  pagan  cemeteries. 
These  cemeteries  are  in  themselves  objects  of  extraordinary 
attractiveness,  and  the  third  Chapter  is  devoted  to  a  discussion 
of  the  many  points  of  interest  which  they  offer  to  the 
student. 

It  is  an  outstanding  fact,  as  interesting  in  its  way  to  the 
peasant  in  the  fields  as  to  the  scientific  antiquary,  that  through 
almost  all  the  districts  of  England  where  in  the  pagan  period 
the  Teutons  established  themselves,  the  bones,  the  ashes,  the 
personal   belongings  of  the  conquerors  may  come  to    light 


22  INTRODUCTORY 

almost  anywhere  a  foot  or  two  beneath  the  ground.  The 
labouring  man, 

'That  binds  the  sheaf, 
Or  builds  the  house,  or  digs  the  grave,' 

may  light  at  hazard  on  the  sepulchral  urn  or  other  relic  of 
his  fellow  villager  of  fourteen  centuries  ago,  while  these  same 
remains  may  have  a  significance  for  the  archaeologist  that 
creates  a  new  link  in  the  chain  of  social  happenings  which 
makes  the  history  of  Teutonic  England  after  all  a  unity. 
There  are  parts  of  England  where  Anglo-Saxon  cemeteries  are 
so  abundant  that  they  seem  to  lie  in  wait  for  us  on  every  side, 
and  in  many  cases  there  is  about  these  the  additional  interest 
that  they  occupy  the  site  of  previous  burying-places  of  the 
British  period,  and  suggest  a  closer  continuity  between  Celtic 
and  Saxon  civilization  than  has  generally  been  assumed.  The 
following  happened  only  three  or  four  years  ago. 

In  1 910  the  proprietrix  of  a  modern  mansion  situated  in 
the  pleasant  southern  '  residential  suburb '  attached  to  the 
old-world  Broadstairs  in  the  Isle  of  Thanet,  was  altering  the 
line  of  the  carriage  drive  up  to  her  house,  when  there  came  to 
light,  only  a  foot  or  so  beneath  the  present  surface,  about  a 
score  of  graves  in  which  were  skeletons  accompanied  by  tomb 
furniture  of  an  unmistakably  Anglo-Saxon  type.  There  had 
been  nothing  above  ground  to  give  the  faintest  hint  of  what 
lay  beneath.  The  carriage  drive  skirted  a  grassy  space  in 
front  of  the  house  used  as  a  playing-ground,  and  during  the 
summer  of  1 9 1 1  the  gardener  noticed  that  on  certain  spots  in 
this  the  grass  was  not  growing  satisfactorily,  and  that  these 
spots  seemed  to  form  part  of  a  large  circle.  On  one  of  the 
patches  being  opened  black  earth  and  bones  made  their  appear- 
ance, and  a  thorough  exploration  the  details  of  which  are  given 
later  on  (p.  132)  revealed  the  fact  that  the  Anglo-Saxon 
cemetery  was  in  this  part  underlaid  by  a  far  earlier  burial- 
ground  that  had  been  appropriated  by  the  new-comers.  The 
Anglo-Saxon  or,  more   properly,  Jutish  graves  were  of  the 


TOMB  FURNITURE  23 

pagan  period  and  the  underlying  ones  arranged  in  circular 
trenches  were  of  the  Bronze  Age,  dating  perhaps  from  as  long 
before  the  Teutonic  conquest  as  the  Teutonic  conquest  dates 
from  before  our  own  time. 

In  the  summer  of  1912  a  lady  started  to  build  a  small 
country  house  near  the  picturesque  village  of  Alfriston  on  the 
Cuckmere,  Sussex.  The  spot  is  on  a  knoll  about  a  quarter  of 
a  mile  above  the  village,  and  here  as  soon  as  the  upper  soil 
was  removed  there  came  to  view  skeletons  buried  with  a  rich 
assortment  of  arms  and  ornaments.  Here  again  there  had 
been  no  sign  of  the  existence  of  a  cemetery  and  the  discovery- 
was  quite  fortuitous,  yet  there  to  the  number  of  nearly  a 
hundred  and  twenty  had  been  laid  to  rest,  armed,  equipped, 
and  adorned,  the  men  and  women  who  represented  the  first 
English  community  of  Alfriston  ;  and  there,  not  many  inches 
below  the  surface  of  the  soil  ploughed  over  yearly  by  genera- 
tion after  generation  of  their  descendants,  they  had  held  the 
ground,  happily  undisturbed  until  a  day  when  their  significance 
for  the  country's  history  would  be  duly  understood. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  cemetery  revealing  beneath  English 
greensward  or  tilth  relics  of  the  first  days  of  our  island 
Teutonism — this  is  in  itself  a  national  asset  of  no  small  value. 
Linking  as  it  does  the  present  to  the  remoter  past  of  the  land, 
it  touches  the  historic  sense  and  enlarges  the  mental  vision. 
Man,  remarked  Samuel  Johnson,  rises  in  the  scale  of  being 
when  the  past  and  the  future  claim  an  importance  in  his  mind 
above  that  of  the  passing  hour,  and  these  remains  of  the 
ancestors  of  our  race  witness  to  the  continuity  of  our  civiliza- 
tion and  make  our  English  citizenship  a  nobler  possession  for 
ourselves  and  our  descendants. 

After  the  discussion  of  the  cemetery  itself  which  occupies 
the  third  Chapter,  there  follows  a  necessarily  long  disquisition 
on  the  objects  composing  the  tomb  furniture  which  the 
cemetery  has  preserved  for  us.  Six  chapters  are  not  sufficient 
to  exhaust  the  subject,  and  certain  classes  of  objects  found  in 


24  INTRODUCTORY      . 

the  graves  are  reserved  for  treatment  in  special  connections. 
The  objects  embraced  in  the  tomb  inventories  are  of  numerous 
types  and  the  aim  has  been  to  figure  in  the  plates  and  to  discuss 
examples  of  all  the  principal  types  and  sub-types,  as  well  as 
individual  objects  of  special  interest  or  artistic  worth.  A 
certain  number  of  exceptional  or  enigmatical  objects  have  also 
received  attention,  and  room  has  been  found  for  characteristic 
specimens  of  the  continental  work  of  the  same  order  and 
epoch  that  will  be  found  useful  for  comparison  with  our  native 
products.  More  than  a  hundred  plates  figuring  some  900 
objects  or  groups  illustrate  these  six  chapters  on  the  tomb 
furniture,  and  not  only  are  the  objects  themselves  very 
numerous,  but  they  have  necessarily  to  be  regarded  from  more 
than  one  point  of  view.  The  points  of  view  of  the  general 
reader,  the  archaeologist,  and  the  historical  student  were  in- 
dicated at  the  outset  as  demanding  consideration,  and  an 
explanation  must  now  be  given  of  the  method  of  treatment 
that  has  in  consequence  been  adopted. 

To  the  general  reader  tomb  furniture  is  primarily  of  value 
as  helping  him  to  visualize  the  past.  The  bones  themselves 
of  the  occupant  of  the  grave  may  have  decayed  away,  but  the 
golden  ornament  or  vessel  of  glass  or  bronze  is  well  preserved, 
and  of  the  iron  implement  or  weapon  enough  remains  to  show 
its  shape  and  purpose.  From  this  movable  apparatus  of  life 
of  our  Teutonic  forefathers  we  guess  their  appearance,  their 
habit  and  equipment,  their  personal  and  social  goings-on.  A 
closer  examination  of  the  objects  suggests  further  questions 
and  hypotheses.  The  value  of  their  materials,  the  elaboration 
of  their  execution,  at  once  indicate  the  social  status  and  grade 
of  culture  of  owner  and  of  maker,  and  if  haply  the  design  and 
details  evince  not  only  care  and  refinement  but  a  sense  of 
beauty  and  marked  inventiveness,  our  general  idea  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  culture  is  proportionately  raised. 

On  the  other  hand  the  archaeologist  in  the  severest  sense 


THE  ARCHAEOLOGICAL  STANDPOINT  25 

of  the  term  cares  for  none  of  these  things.  The  nature  of  the 
object  affects  him  in  so  far  as  his  knowledge  of  this  enables 
him  to  group  it  with  others  of  the  same  class,  but  his  chief 
interest  in  it  does  not  concern  the  probable  conditions  under 
which  it  was  made  and  used  so  much  as  its  relations  to  the 
other  objects  of  its  group.  His  primary  desire,  as  the  ex- 
pression goes,  is  to  '  place '  the  new  specimen  in  an  ascending 
or  descending  series,  and  he  will  effect  his  purpose  through  the 
so-called  science  of  typology.  This  science,  on  the  principles 
of  which  modern  archaeological  work  is  largely  carried  on,  is 
based  on  the  fact  that  the  forms,  the  details,  the  enrichment, 
of  productions  such  as  the  sword-hilt  or  the  fibula  not  only 
vary  but  observe  in  their  changes  a  certain  consistency  and 
order,  which  makes  it  possible  to  arrange  them  in  a  chrono- 
logical series.  Allowing  of  course  a  proper  margin  for  possible 
error,  it  is  theoretically  within  the  competence  of  the  archaeo- 
logist to  determine,  or  at  any  rate  to  announce,  the  comparative 
dates  of  examples  of  any  class  of  objects  represented  at  all 
numerously  in  the  inventories  of  finds.  It  needs  hardly  to  be 
said  that  to  arrive  at  anything  like  assurance  in  matters  of  the 
kind  is  an  affair  of  time  and  labour,  and  many  accomplished 
antiquaries  have  written  volumes  on  special  groups  of  objects 
without  exhausting  all  the  material  that  each  group  affords. 
The  comparative  method,  as  its  name  implies,  means  this 
analytical  treatment  of  numerous  examples  in  juxtaposition,  as 
well  as  the  marshalling  of  a  great  deal  of  subsidiary  material 
bearing  on  the  life  history  of  forms  and  patterns,  for  these  can 
often  be  traced  back  to  earlier  and  exotic  phases  of  art,  just  as 
we  find  in  the  Roman  currency  the  prototypes  of  devices  on 
Saxon  coin  and  Scandinavian  bracteate.  The  point  is  that 
this  kind  of  study  concerns  the  objects  as  things  in  themselves 
apart  from  their  personal,  social,  and  historical  relations.  One 
of  the  most  sagacious  antiquaries  of  to-day,  Dr.  Joseph 
Anderson,  has  insisted  even  with  a  note  of  austerity  that  the 
archaeologist  has  properly  speaking  nothing  to  do  with  history 


26  INTRODUCTORY 

as  a  matter  of  absolute  dates  B.C.  or  Anno  Domini,  but  only  with 
comparative  dates  arrived  at  by  placing  objects  in  an  ascending 
or  descending  series. 

The  historical  student  accepts  the  scientific  data  furnished 
by  archaeology  but  employs  them  as  the  starting-point  of  a 
wider  survey.  He  is  not  satisfied  with  regarding  the  weapon 
or  the  jewel  as  just  one  of  a  row  of  specimens  in  a  museum, 
but  in  fancy  sees  it  flash  in  the  sea  rover's  hand  or  sparkle  on 
the  shoulder  of  some  stately  Rowen  or  Lioba  of  the  heroic 
age.  Warrior  and  lady  were  people  of  flesh  and  blood  with  a 
time  and  a  place  of  their  own  in  the  Western  world,  and  to 
determine  these  he  interrogates  the  objects  thus  wielded  or 
worn.  The  step,  often  a  hazardous  one,  from  the  relative  to 
the  absolute  date  he  must  boldly  essay.  As  a  basis  for  this 
historical  location  of  the  objects  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance 
to  know  where  these  various  objects  came  to  light  and  especi- 
ally the  associations  in  which  they  were  found.  For  this 
would  be  required  what  the  Germans  call  a  *  Statistik,'  in  the 
form  of  a  tabular  conspectus  of  the  whole  material,  indicating 
the  localities  where  each  class  of  productions  is  represented 
and  noting  how  the  specimens  were  grouped  and  connected 
among  themselves.  In  the  case  in  view  such  a  '  Statistik ' 
would  furnish  data  for  comparison  with  the  statements  of  the 
ancients  and  conjectures  of  the  moderns  as  to  the  detailed 
history  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  settlements. 

Some  idea  of  the  scope  of  a  work  that  should  fulfil  the 
requirements  here  indicated  may  be  gained  from  a  monumental 
treatise  on  an  important  continental  province  of  early  Teutonic 
art,  the  late  Professor  Hampel's  Alterthumer  des  fruhen  Mittel- 
alters  in  Ungarn.  Hungary  indeed  is  more  than  twice  the 
size  of  that  part  of  England  that  forms  our  Anglo-Saxon 
province,  but  at  the  same  time  our  finds  have  been  very 
numerous  and  varied,  and  the  available  material  found  in  the 
one  district  is  fairly  comparable  with  that  in  the  other.  Now 
Professor  Hampel's  work  is  in  three   volumes.      The  first, 


PROGRAM  OF  THE  WORK  27 

running  to  850  pages,  contains  in  its  earlier  half  a  description 
of  the  various  types  of  objects  found  in  Hungarian  cemeteries 
of  the  period  from  the  point  of  view  of  their  nature  and  use  as 
weapons,  implements,  ornaments,  and  the  like  ;  and  in  the  last 
half  a  discussion  of  the  different  kinds  of  ornament  found  on 
these  objects,  followed  by  a  hundred  pages  in  which  the 
chronology  of  the  different  types  is  within  certain  limits  fixed. 
There  are  more  than  2000  text  illustrations.  Volume  two  of 
more  than  1000  pages  with  numerous  illustrations  contains  a 
systematic  *  Statistik '  of  all  the  finds  in  the  kingdom,  while 
the  third  volume  consists  in  540  plates,  each  as  a  rule  figuring 
a  number  of  objects  the  description  of  which  has  been  given  in 
the  statistical  volume.  In  this  work,  large  as  is  its  scope,  there 
is  one  heading  hardly  represented — the  objects  are  not  speci- 
ally envisaged  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  particular  Teutonic 
people  to  which  each  may  have  belonged.  The  fact  is  that  in 
Hungary,  after  the  one  definite  fact  of  the  residence  in  that 
region  for  about  a  century  prior  to  376  a.d.  of  the  Visigoths, 
there  was  such  a  coming  and  going  of  peoples  that  it  is  impos- 
sible to  say  with  any  assurance  to  which  particular  tribe  any 
cemetery  or  part  of  a  cemetery  belonged.  In  the  case  of 
England  considerable  historical  data  of  this  kind  exist,  and 
historical  questions  of  the  sort  just  indicated  force  themselves 
very  much  on  the  attention,  introducing  a  new  element  of 
interest  and  of  difficulty  over  and  above  those  present  in  the 
discussion  of  the  contemporary  antiquities  of  Hungary. 

For  an  unsubsidized  work  produced  under  British  condi- 
tions a  far  more  modest  program  is  indicated,  and  in  the 
chapters  on  the  tomb  furniture,  while  the  points  of  view  above 
noticed  have  been  held  in  regard,  the  treatment  has  been  single 
and  continuous.  The  following  is  the  main  scheme  of  the 
inventory.  A  single  typical  cemetery  is  taken  as  the  starting- 
point,  the  one  chosen  being  that  of  Bifrons  near  Canterbury 
opened  in  1867.  It  is  a  cemetery  remarkable  for  the  number 
of  types  represented  in  it  and  this  is  especially  the  case  with 


28  INTRODUCTORY 

the  fibulae.  Most  of  the  objects  recovered  are  in  the  Museum 
of  the  Kent  Archaeological  Society  at  Maidstone  but  a  large 
number  remain  the  private  possession  of  the  proprietor  of  the 
estate,1  at  Bifrons  House.  Here  are  presented  specimens  of  a 
large  number  of  the  objects  the  Anglo-Saxons  in  general  buried 
with  their  dead,  and  this  inventory  will  be  supplemented  by  a 
notice  of  all  the  other  chief  classes  of  objects  in  the  archaeo- 
logical repertory  of  the  period  that  do  not  happen  to  occur  in 
the  Bifrons  hoards.  The  first  main  heading  is  that  of  arms, 
under  which  are  enumerated  the  mail  coat,  the  helmet,  and  the 
shield  represented  by  its  central  boss  and  handle  of  iron  and  by 
sundry  appliques  and  ornaments.  The  weapons  of  offence  are 
headed  by  the  sword  in  its  different  forms,  including  the  large 
two-edged  kind,  and  the  smaller  single-edged  sword  the  size  of 
which  can  be  so  reduced  that  it  becomes  only  a  knife.  In 
connection  with  the  sword  the  points  of  chief  archaeological 
importance  are  its  historical  position  in  the  development  of  the 
weapon  generally,  and  also  more  specially  its  hilt,  for  this 
passes  through  a  series  of  morphological  changes  that  are 
interesting  and  instructive  to  trace.  The  axe  comes  next,  and 
then  the  spear  the  weapon  par  excellence  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
man-at-arms,  with  the  rare  barbed  throwing-javelin  called 
*  angon.'  Lastly  come  the  bow  and  arrow,  though  these  are 
hardly  represented  in  the  finds.  The  descriptions  are  intended 
to  give  a  general  idea  of  the  form,  dimensions,  material,  orna- 
mentation, and  manner  of  use  of  each  kind  of  object,  with  the 
localities  and  connections  in  which  each  is  found,  and  such 
archaeological  facts  about  it  as  may  help  to  fix  approximate 
dates  and  connect  it  with  one  or  other  of  the  sections  of  our 
Teutonic  settlers. 

The  plates  reproduce  original  photographs  by  the  writer 
from  specimens  in  public  and  private  collections  the  adminis- 
trators or  owners  of  which  have  been  good  enough  to  grant 

1  Through  whose  kind  permission  the  writer  has  been  enabled  to  photo- 
graph and  reproduce  some  interesting  examples. 


CHARACTER  OF  THE  ILLUSTRATIONS  29 

the  needful  permission.  As  a  rule  a  number  of  objects  appear 
on  each  plate  and  acknowledgement  is  due  to  the  engravers  for 
their  success  in  overcoming  difficulties  incident  to  the  work  of 
reproduction.  The  photographs  necessarily  varied  in  tone  and 
sometimes  in  colour  as  well  as  in  the  nature  of  their  back- 
grounds, and  it  was  by  no  means  easy  to  secure  an  even  effect, 
such  as  comes  naturally  when  line  engraving  is  employed.  The 
value  of  the  faithfulness  of  the  record  conveyed  by  the  photo- 
graph must  be  set  against  the  unevenness  in  the  matter  of 
backgrounds,  as  well  as  against  another  characteristic  which  the 
archaeologist  may  regard  as  a  defect.  This  is  the  absence  of 
exactness  of  scale  in  the  dimensions.  In  the  case  of  an 
engraving,  each  piece  can  be  worked  to  scale,  and  the  object 
appear  in  the  figure  on  the  scale  of  ^,  |r,  and  so  on  according 
to  its  actual  size.  It  is  possible  of  course  to  secure  exactitude 
of  size  in  a  photographic  print  and  in  the  process  block  pre- 
pared from  it,  but  in  the  case  of  a  large  number  of  negatives 
taken  separately  in  museum  surroundings  as  best  they  could, 
of  varying  sizes,  and  grouped  together  for  reproduction  upon 
a  single  block,  the  conditions  made  such  a  result  practically 
unattainable.  It  stands  to  reason  that  the  exact  dimensions  of 
an  object  is  an  archaeological  fact  about  it  that  should  be 
scrupulously  recorded,  and  in  the  text  as  well  as  in  the  ex- 
tended list  of  illustrations  at  the  beginning  of  this  volume 
these  dimensions  are  as  far  as  possible  given,  whereas  from  the 
actual  reproduction  on  the  plate  such  information  is  not  always 
to  be  derived.  The  group  on  each  plate  is  not  a  set  of  objects 
all  taken  together  on  one  negative,  and  the  scale  of  different 
items  in  the  group  may  vary,  though  an  endeavour  has  been 
made  to  keep  the  scale  on  each  plate  as  even  as  possible. 

Another  consideration  also  has  here  been  operative.  The 
primary  object  of  the  book  being  an  artistic  one  it  was  neces- 
sary to  exhibit  objects  and  details  of  objects  on  such  a  scale 
that  the  qualities  of  the  work  in  design  and  execution  should 
be  readily  apparent.     It  frequently  happens  that  the  scale  of 


3o  INTRODUCTORY 

an  original  is  so  small  that  no  one  could  satisfactorily  judge  of 
it  without  the  aid  of  a  magnifying  glass.  It  is  impossible  to 
use  a  glass  upon  a  process  reproduction,  so  that  the  necessary 
enlargement  must  be  effected  in  the  photograph.  The  early 
Saxon  coins  furnish  a  case  in  point.  The  originals  have  a 
diameter  only  about  two-thirds  that  of  a  threepenny  piece  and 
on  some  there  is  a  good  deal  of  detail.  As  shown  in  the 
plates  these  are  all  magnified  from  one  and  a  half  to  two 
diameters,  as  without  such  enlargement  they  could  not  be 
properly  appreciated.  The  same  applies  to  many  of  the 
objects  on  the  other  plates,  but  in  each  case  indications  of 
scale  are  given  at  the  foot  of  the  plate,  and  as  mentioned 
before  the  real  dimensions  are  readily  accessible. 

Following  on  the  treatment  of  the  arms  in  Chapter  iv 
comes  that  of  costume,  and  under  this  main  heading  the  first 
place  is  taken  by  the  fastenings  of  dress,  the  brooch,  the 
buckle,  the  clasp,  and  the  pin.  Of  these  objects  by  far  the 
most  important  is  the  brooch  or  fibula,  and  to  this  in  its  many 
forms  and  under  its  various  aspects  are  devoted  Chapters  v 
and  vi.  These  chapters  are  respectively  concerned  with 
fibula  morphology  and  fibula  ornamentation,  and  they  are 
made  the  opportunity  for  discussing  several  points  of  archaeo- 
logical as  well  as  artistic  interest.  Fibulae  are  of  many 
different  kinds,  and  most  of  the  sub-types  pass  through  typo- 
logical changes  which  render  it  possible  to  arrange  each  set 
archaeologically  in  a  series.  Absolute  dates  can  in  some  cases 
be  fixed  with  reasonable  certainty  and  in  virtue  of  these  we 
can  distribute  specimens  along  the  whole  tract  of  time  during 
which  this  tomb  furniture  was  being  made  and  used.  The 
locality  in  which  each  specimen  was  discovered  gives  an 
indication  of  the  particular  branch  of  the  Teutonic  settlers 
among  whom  this  particular  form  was  in  vogue,  and  it 
receives  in  this  way  its  historical  setting  as  well  as  its  place  in 
an  archaeological  series. 

The   subject   of   fibula   ornamentation   introduces    us   to 


ORDER  OF  THE  INVENTORY  31 

questions  of  technique  and  of  the  derivation  and  use  of 
motives,  that  apply  to  other  objects  as  well  as  the  brooches. 
An  analysis  of  the  different  processes  of  enrichment  applied  to 
metal  and  other  materials  will  be  found  at  the  opening  of 
Chapter  vi,  and  this  is  followed  by  a  similar  analysis  of  the 
decorative  motives  of  a  linear,  conventional,  floral,  zoomorphic, 
and  anthropomorphic  kind  of  which  the  fibulae  furnish  a  rich 
variety  of  illustrations,  but  which  occur  also  in  other  connec- 
tions. In  each  case  the  derivation  of  the  motive  and  the 
typological  changes  through  which  it  passes  are  made  the 
subject  of  inquiry,  the  evidence  bearing  on  questions  of  date 
receiving  special  consideration. 

From  this  discussion  of  the  fibula,  extended  as  it  is,  there 
is  omitted  the  treatment  of  one  very  important  class  of 
brooches,  the  jewelled  fibulae  in  gold  and  garnet  work 
characteristic  of  the  Kentish  cemeteries.  These  introduce 
the  subject  of  inlaid  jewellery  in  general,  but  this  subject 
cannot  be  treated  without  a  reference  to  the  previous  history 
of  the  technique  among  the  oriental  and  the  Germanic  peoples, 
and  the  circumstances  in  which  it  came  in  to  take  up  its  abode 
among  ourselves.  Hence  the  treatment  of  inlaid  jewellery  is 
reserved  for  the  subsequent  Chapter  x. 

A  more  succinct  treatment  is  applied  in  Chapters  vn,  vm, 
and  ix  to  a  large  number  of  other  items  of  the  tomb  furniture 
arranged  on  the  following  scheme.  A  discussion  of  the  buckle 
and  the  pin  completes  the  subject  of  the  fastenings  of  the 
dress  and  this  is  followed  by  some  notice  of  the  costume  in 
itself,  its  forms,  materials  and  textile  enrichment.  Subsequently 
to  this  it  is  necessary  to  embark  on  a  disquisition,  that  may 
tend  at  times  to  become  wearisome,  on  sundry  adjuncts  of  the 
toilette  such  as  combs,  tweezers,  and  the  like,  and  on  other 
personal  belongings  carried  habitually  on  a  chatelaine  or  in  a 
pouch,  or  suspended  singly  from  the  belt.  Spoons  with  per- 
forated bowls,  amulets  of  rock  crystal  and  other  substances, 
strike-a-lights,  keys,  spindle-whorls  and  spindles,  work  boxes, 


32  INTRODUCTORY 

tools,  counters,  weights  and  scales,  bells,  are  specimens  of 
these,  and  a  place  is  found  in  this  connection  for  various 
implements,  odds-and-ends,  fittings,  and  enigmatical  objects, 
not  in  themselves  of  great  importance  but  for  various  reasons 
worth  illustrating,  and  this  section  of  the  tomb  inventory 
concludes  with  a  notice  of  horse  trappings. 

The  next  main  heading  is  that  of  objects  of  personal 
adornment  not  connected  with  the  clothing,  such  as  necklets, 
pendants,  bracelets,  ear-drops,  and  finger  rings,  and  in  this 
category  the  principal  place  is  taken  by  the  coloured  glass 
beads  so  abundant  and  highly  esteemed  at  the  period.  Finally, 
the  last  group  is  collected  under  the  heading  '.  Vessels,'  and 
special  attention  is  given  to  those  in  bronze  and  in  glass,  one 
important  class  of  vessel,  the  sepulchral  urn  of  baked  clay 
being  left  over  for  subsequent  treatment  in  Chapter  x. 

The  object  of  these  six  chapters  is  to  provide  the  reader 
with  suitable  information  about  (i)  the  nature  and  use  of  the 
various  objects  found  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  graves,  (2)  their 
characteristics  as  specimens  of  craftsmanship  and  works  of  art, 
and  (3)  the  points  of  archaeological  interest  which  they  present 
or  illustrate.  The  historical  standpoint  has  in  the  meantime 
been  comparatively  neglected.  The  appearance  of  certain 
classes  of  objects  in  particular  districts  of  Teutonized  Britain, 
and  their  absence  from  others,  is  of  course  of  historical  signifi- 
cance so  far  as  it  bears  upon  tribal  or  racial  differences  among 
the  settlers,  but  these  facts  though  noted  in  passing  are  not  in 
these  chapters  made  the  basis  of  any  extended  survey.  Such 
a  survey  occupies  the  latter  part  of  the  second  volume  now 
published,  and  in  connection  therewith  those  items  of  the 
tomb  furniture  omitted  in  the  previous  chapters  will  be 
brought  forward  for  discussion.  Before  however  we  go  on 
to  give  a  general  idea  of  the  method  pursued  in  these  later 
chapters  a  pause  may  be  made  here  for  the  consideration  of 
one  or  two  general  questions  suggested  by  the  description  of 
the  grave-goods  now  before  the  reader. 


THE  QUESTION  OF  ORIGIN  33 

That  these  goods  are  in  the  main  of  native  manufacture, 
and  that  this  applies  to  those  of  delicate  make  and  artistic 
design  as  well  as  to  the  coarser  objects,  may  as  well  be 
accepted  at  once.  Any  prejudice  of  the  kind  referred  to  a 
few  pages  back  that  may  linger  in  the  mind  of  a  reader  will 
assuredly  be  removed  by  a  perusal  of  the  chapter  on  coins  and 
those  on  the  tomb  furniture.  The  number  of  items  in  the 
latter  that  show  forms  common  in  this  country  but  non- 
existent or  of  extreme  rarity  abroad  remove  all  doubt  as  to 
this.  This  does  not  of  course  mean  that  there  are  no  imported 
goods  in  our  cemeteries.  There  are  some  classes  of  objects 
notably  vessels  of  glass  that  are  certainly  of  foreign  origin, 
and  this  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  in  other  regions  of  Europe 
such  as  Scandinavia  the  very  counterparts  are  found  of  pieces 
that  our  own  graves  have  yielded  up.  The  inference  forced 
on  the  mind  is  that  there  was  some  common  centre,  say  the 
Rhineland  or  northern  Gaul,  from  which  these  attractive  objects 
were  exported  to  all  the  lands  around.  In  the  case  of  other 
objects  very  common  abroad  but  among  ourselves  of  con- 
spicuous rarity,  importation  may  be  held  to  explain  the 
phenomena,  though  at  the  same  time  it  is  always  possible  that 
an  Anglo-Saxon  craftsman  had  been  copying  some  continental 
model.  The  same  applies  to  objects  that  bear  a  resemblance 
not  to  contemporary  products  from  across  the  sea  but  to 
works  of  Roman  or  of  Celtic  provenance  such  as  were  made 
in  our  own  country  before  the  Teutonic  inroads.  The 
question  sometimes  arises  whether  a  particular  piece  is  a 
Romano-British  survival  or  a  piece  of  Saxon  workmanship 
that  has  been  influenced  in  design  or  technique  by  some 
earlier  model.  A  decision  in  such  a  case  is  often  very 
difficult,  but  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  cases  of  the  kind 
are  exceptional  and  do  not  in  the  least  invalidate  the  general 
principle  enunciated  above,  that  in  the  main  the  objects  found 
in  Anglo-Saxon  graves  are  of  native  origin. 

This  being  established,  further  questions  arise  as  to  where, 
in  c 


34  INTRODUCTORY 

by  whom,  and  under  what  conditions  the  native  manufacture 
was  carried  on.  It  is  disappointing  to  have  to  state  that  there 
is  practically  no  evidence,  and  very  little  that  even  amounts  to 
a  hint,  upon  this  interesting  and  important  subject.  Con- 
jecture may  be  aided  to  some  small  extent  by  analogies  drawn 
from  other  countries  or  periods,  but  of  direct  information  as 
to  the  processes  and  conditions  of  Anglo-Saxon  craftsmanship 
there  is  an  almost  total  dearth.  In  the  case  of  the  coinage, 
the  names  of  a  great  many  Anglo-Saxon  moneyers  are  known, 
though  almost  all  belong  to  a  time  when  tomb  furniture  was 
no  longer  in  fashion,  and  the  suggestion  has  found  much 
favour  that  the  coin  artist  was  also  the  goldsmith  who  made 
the  inlaid  jewellery  and  worked  the  twists  and  filigrees.  It 
will  however  be  shown  that  the  designs  on  the  coins  and  on 
the  grave-goods  are  so  utterly  unlike  that  this  theory  is  not 
very  plausible.  The  existence  among  our  Saxon  forefathers 
of  the  weapon  smith  and  the  goldsmith  is  attested  in  literature, 
but  we  are  ignorant  as  to  the  diffusion  of  superior  craftsmen 
among  the  scattered  communities.  Would  every  sizable  vil- 
lage have  its  smith,  and  would  such  a  one  be  as  a  rule  capable 
of  forging  a  socketed  spear  head  or  a  shield  boss  ?  Was  the 
admirable  Kentish  jewellery,  attested  as  a  native  product  by 
its  unlikeness  to  what  is  found  abroad,  made  here  and  there 
locally  in  the  rural  communities,  or  did  it  proceed  from  a  few 
of  the  larger  centres  such  as  the  revived  Roman  cities  like 
Canterbury  or  Rochester  ;  or  again  was  it  turned  out  where 
required  by  peripatetic  craftsmen  who  moved  up  and  down 
the  country  ?  Analogy  seems  to  show  that  all  these  hypo- 
theses are  plausible.  That  fine  metal  work  could  be  carried  on 
in  small  communities  very  simply  equipped  was  rendered 
strikingly  evident  the  other  day  through  the  exploration  by 
Mr.  A.  O.  Curie  of  an  early  fort  in  Galloway.  Among  the  finds 
here  were  a  number  of  moulds  in  terra-cotta  for  casting  delicately 
ornamented  horse  trappings  and  trinkets  of  various  kinds  in 
bronze.    The  communit v  was  limited  in  numbers  and  isolated  far 


CONDITIONS  OF  FABRICATION  35 

from  any  important  centres  of  population,  yet  this  fine  artistic 
work  of  Celtic  type  seemed  in  quite  a  flourishing  condition.1 

That  the  Teutonic  chieftains  kept  goldsmiths  for  royal 
work  at  their  capitals  or  at  any  rate  residences  may  be  argued 
from  a  passage,  §  viii,  in  a  Life  of  St.  Severinus,2  referring  to 
events  of  the  latter  part  of  V  among  the  Teutonic  people  called 
the  Rugians  who  dwelt  at  the  time  north  of  the  Danube  near 
Linz.  The  king  had  goldsmiths  of  the  barbarian  race — not 
provincial-Romans — who  were  kept  close  prisoners  in  the 
palace  and  obliged  to  work  all  day  upon  ornaments  for 
members  of  the  royal  house. 

In  the  Museum  at  Budapest  there  is  a  curious  and  indeed 
unique  find  illustrating  the  procedure  of  the  peripatetic  crafts- 
man. It  consists  in  a  number  of  moulds  in  bronze  over 
which  sheet  silver  or  gold  was  intended  to  be  beaten.  They  are 
with  one  exception  positive,  not  negative,  moulds,  so  that  the 
sheet  metal  was  beaten  over,  not  into,  them.  They  were 
found  to  the  number  of  about  two  score  in  a  gravel  bed  that 
had  once  formed  a  bank  of  the  river  Maros  in  Hungary,  and 
with  them  were  the  bones  of  a  horse.  It  is  supposed  that  a 
travelling  goldsmith  with  his  stock-in-trade  was  drowned 
when  crossing  a  ford  of  the  river  on  horseback,  and  that  we 
have  before  us  the  implements  with  which  he  would  go  round 
the  country,  like  the  modern  tinker,  tempting  the  country- 
women to  invest  in  a  bit  of  gold  or  silver  finery  which  he 
would  fabricate  under  their  eyes.3 

Whether  or  not  the  travelling  craftsman  was  in  evidence 
in  Anglo-Saxon  England,  the  travelling  merchant  may  be 
safely  assumed  as  a  familiar  figure.  It  is  however  a  question 
over  how  wide  an  extent  of  territory  the  operations  of  such  a 
one  would  range.     The  merchant  from  overseas  had  known 

1  Proc.  Soc.  Ant.  Scot.,xLViu,  125  f.        2  Mon.  Germ.  Hist.,  Auct.  Ant.,  1. 

3  The  moulds,  with  silver  ornaments  (modern)  beaten  to  shape  over 
them  to  show  the  technique,  are  figured  in  Jrts  and  Crafts  of  our  Teutonic 
Forefathers,  PI.  xxvi. 


36  INTRODUCTORY 

his  way  into  south-eastern  Britain  from  a  period  long  before 
Julius  Caesar,  and  intercourse  with  the  mainland  was  of  course 
in  the  Roman  period  of  the  closest.  What  difference  was 
made  by  the  Teutonic  inroads  cannot  exactly  be  said,  and 
there  is  a  well-known  passage  of  a  weird  significance  in  Pro- 
copius  which  might  be  interpreted  as  meaning  that  our  island 
was  for  a  season  entirely  cut  off  from  any  continental  inter- 
course. But,  as  we  shall  see,  the  evidence  both  of  history 
and  of  archaeology  seems  to  show  that  the  Saxons  and  the 
Jutes,  if  not  the  main  body  of  the  Angles  also,  were  in  touch 
with  the  Rhineland  and  with  northern  Gaul  at  the  time 
they  became  possessed  of  their  new  insular  seats,  and  it  is 
hardly  likely  that  they  would  designedly  isolate  themselves  in 
these.  The  '  mercator '  is  at  all  times  and  places  a  privileged 
person,  and  goods  were  probably  ferried  across  to  Richborough 
haven  or  to  Dover  as  soon  as  the  sea-rovers  were  masters  of 
Thanet.  It  is  certain  at  any  rate  than  in  VI  objects  such  as 
delicate  glass  vessels  requiring  considerable  care  in  transit 
were  conveyed  from  overseas  and  distributed  not  only  through 
Kent  but  far  inland.  Hence  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the 
possibility  at  any  rate  of  the  importation  of  foreign  goods  and 
of  their  conveyance  to  the  interior  of  the  island,  but  it  has 
already  been  made  sufficiently  clear  that  Anglo-Saxon  grave- 
goods  are  not  to  be  explained  on  such  a  hypothesis.  Sporadic 
finds  prove  the  possibility  just  indicated,  but  the  bulk  of  the 
objects  found  in  the  cemeteries  are  not  only  of  insular  make 
but  were  evidently  fashioned  locally  and  distributed  not  far 
afield  but  within  some  tribal  area.  Archaeological  facts  agree 
with  what  appears  the  common-sense  of  the  situation.  Ordin- 
ary objects  might  be  made  anywhere,  while  those  of  valuable 
materials  and  elaborate  workmanship  issued  from  one  or  two 
centres  in  each  tribal  area  and  were  sold  or  bartered  for  within 
the  area,  a  few  only  finding  their  way  farther  afield.  The 
Kentish  inlaid  disc-shaped  brooch,  one  of  the  most  distinctive 
of  the  various  items  of  the  tomb  furniture,  is  represented  by 


LOCAL  DISTRIBUTION  OF  FINDS  37 

very  numerous  examples  within  the  ancient  kingdom,  and  by 
one  or  two  specimens  exported  beyond  the  area,  such  as  the 
inlaid  fibulae  found  at  Abingdon,  PL  cxlv,  i,  2.  The  technique 
of  the  garnet  inlays  represented  by  these  brooches  belongs 
evidently  to  Kent,  but  we  find  objects  that  exhibit  it  distributed 
though  very  sparingly  in  the  areas  north  of  the  Thames.  As 
the  date  of  these  objects  is  comparatively  late  there  is  great 
plausibility  in  the  suggestion  which  has  been  made x  that  a 
political  reason  can  be  found  for  this  diffusion  of  Kentish 
fashions  in  the  extension  of  the  authority  of  iEthelberht  of 
Kent  when  his  primacy  or  Bretwaldaship  was  recognized 
through  the  country  at  large  as  far  as  the  Humber. 

Other  classes  of  objects  are  still  more  strictly  confined 
within  spacial  limits.  Clasps  for  fastening  sleeves  at  the  wrist 
are  only  found  very  sporadically  outside  a  limited  area  of 
which  the  centre  is  Cambridgeshire,  while  the  so-called  '  girdle 
hanger,'  a  curious  and  indeed  enigmatical  adjunct  to  the 
costume,  has  hardly  made  its  appearance  south  of  the  Thames. 
Another  object  the  distribution  of  which  invites  comment  is 
the  so-called  *  saucer  '  brooch  (p.  275  f.).  The  area  of  its  occur- 
rence is  fairly  wide  but  is  limited  with  some  rigidness,  and  in 
respect  to  it  we  have  the  interesting  fact  that  many  specimens 
are  evidently  of  early  date.  Now  this  is  an  object  that  is 
specifically  Anglo-Saxon  and  that  is  so  rare  abroad  that  only 
two  or  three  continental  specimens  are  known.  One  of  these 
is  almost  certainly  of  English  origin,  though  at  least  one  pair 
of  finished  specimens  was  made  in  northern  Germany  about 
the  time  of  the  invasions  of  England.  Apart  from  this,  the 
prototypes  or  embryo  forms  of  the  object  are  found  occurring 
in  those  parts  of  the  Continent  whence  our  forefathers  came 
or  with  which  at  the  time  they  were  in  touch,  and  this  shows 
that  the  immigrants  brought  with  them  the  elements  or  sug- 
gestions of  the  form  and  developed  it  in  their  new  seats.  The 
system  of  fabrication  and  of  distribution  must  therefore  have 

1   Victoria  History,  Norfolk,  i,  345  ;  Archaeologia,  lxiii,  192. 


38  INTRODUCTORY 

been  established  at  quite  an  early  period  of  the  settlement, 
and  the  craftsmen  have  been  busy  as  soon  as  the  shield  and 
spear  were  laid  aside. 

There  are  other  classes  and  sub-classes  of  objects  the  dis- 
tribution of  which  is  similarly  circumscribed,  and  these 
phenomena  at  once  assume  historical  importance  when  we  ask 
ourselves  how  far  these  limits  of  distribution  correspond  to 
tribal  or  regnal  boundaries. 

We  are  introduced  here  to  the  question  of  a  '  Statistik  '  of 
Anglo-Saxon  finds  all  over  the  country,  to  which  reference 
has  already  been  made  (p.  26).  A  tabular  conspectus  of  the 
whole  material  showing  where  and  in  what  associations  each 
kind  of  object  has  come  to  light  formed  part  of  the  original 
scheme  of  these  volumes,  but  it  would  have  been  too  volu- 
minous to  publish  in  this  form.  A  survey  district  by  district 
or  county  by  county  giving  a  notice  of  each  cemetery  with 
information  about  the  objects  it  furnished  was  also  a  part  of 
the  preliminary  labours  upon  which  the  present  chapters  are 
based,  and  upon  this  a  word  must  be  said.  As  every  student 
of  our  national  history  is  well  aware,  the  volumes  already 
published  of  the  Victoria  History  of  the  Counties  of  England 
embrace  chapters  on  Anglo-Saxon  antiquities  for  the  most 
part  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Reginald  Smith,  and  these  chapters 
supply  a  conspectus  of  the  discoveries  made  in  different  parts 
of  Teutonized  Britain  with  information  as  to  the  particular 
branch  of  the  new  settlers  to  whom  each  cemetery  should  be 
assigned.  This  work  involved  very  considerable  labour  and 
has  been  carried  out  with  conspicuous  thoroughness  and 
accuracy.  The  records  of  discoveries  where  these  have  been 
printed  are  widely  scattered  among  the  volumes  of  local  and 
general  archaeological  publications,  while  the  objects  them- 
selves are  distributed  among  a  large  riumber  of  public  and 
private  collections  only  to  a  very  small  extent  catalogued,  and 
in  very  many  instances  there  is  a  tantalizing  absence  of  any 
record  of  the  facts  needed  to  make  a  particular  discovery  of 


THE  VICTORIA  HISTORY  39 

scientific  value.  Hence  what  has  been  done  in  the  Victoria 
History  is  of  the  highest  value,  and  at  one  time  the  present 
writer  had  resolved  to  abandon  the  work  he  had  himself 
essayed  on  the  same  lines  and  simply  to  refer  to  the  chapters 
of  the  County  History.  Other  considerations  however  came 
in.  The  ground  has  only  been  partially  covered  in  the  History 
and  a  good  many  counties  have  not  yet  been  included  in  the 
scope  of  the  colossal  publication.  In  the  case  of  several 
counties  the  Anglo-Saxon  notes  were  published  a  good  many 
years  ago  and  fresh  discoveries  some  of  much  importance 
have  intervened.  In  the  county-by-county  scheme  compara- 
tively small  areas  receive  separate  treatment  and  there  is  little 
opportunity  for  wider  and  more  comprehensive  surveys.  The 
Anglo-Saxon  part  of  the  History  is  thus  as  it  stands  a  torso, 
but  it  would  form  the  foundation  for  a  complete  conspectus 
which  Mr.  Reginald  Smith  may  it  is  hoped  find  himself  able 
to  bring  into  being.  The  writer,  who  has  gone  over  a  good 
deal  of  the  ground  examining  independently  the  literary  and 
monumental  materials,  can  bear  emphatic  and  most  grateful 
testimony  to  the  excellence  of  the  work  so  far  accomplished 
and  looks  forward  to  seeing  some  day  the  isolated  articles 
co-ordinated  and  the  whole  country  subjected  to  a  systematic 
and  even  treatment. 

In  the  meantime  the  present  book  cannot  dispense  with 
its  statistical  section.  In  the  chapters  on  tomb  furniture 
reference  is  continually  being  made  to  this  or  that  cemetery 
as  a  place  of  discovery,  and  the  reader  naturally  requires 
information  as  to  the  location  and  character  of  the  graveyard 
and  the  general  nature  of  the  objects  that  it  has  yielded  up. 
The  list  of  illustrations  at  the  beginning  of  the  present 
volume  is  followed  by  a  list  of  cemeteries  with  a  reference  to 
the  page  where  in  each  case  this  information  is  to  be  found. 
Such  cross  references  are  facilitated  by  the  continuous  pagina- 
tion that  runs  through  the  two  volumes.  Again,  the  historical 
considerations  which  are  regarded  here  as  equally  important 


4o  INTRODUCTORY 

with  those  of  an  artistic  and  archaeological  import  demand 
a  proper  basis  of  statistical  material.  This  material  has 
accordingly  been  furnished,  but  it  has  been  worked  up  with 
a  general  treatment  of  the  raids,  invasions,  and  settlements 
of  the  English  that  occupies  the  larger  part  of  the  second 
of  these  two  volumes. 

The  treatment  here  is  an  amplification  of  a  paper  entitled 
'  Archaeological  Evidence  connected  with  the  Teutonic 
Settlement  of  Britain '  which  the  writer  read  at  the  Inter- 
national Congress  of  Historical  Studies  in  London  in  April, 
19 1 3.  This  evidence  concerns  in  the  first  place  the  course 
of  the  original  inroads  and  migrations  and  deals  with  the 
continental  seats  of  our  future  settlers  or  their  forefathers 
and  the  routes  direct  or  roundabout  by  which  they  ultimately 
reached  our  shores  ;  and  in  the  second  place  it  is  concerned 
with  the  time,  the  topography,  and  the  conditions  of  the  actual 
settlements,  and  incidentally  with  the  relations  in  matters  of 
craftsmanship  and  art  between  the  new-comers  and  the 
Romano-British  population.  Dealing  for  the  moment  with 
the  first  points  only,  we  find  that,  briefly  summarized,  the 
evidence  seems  to  show  that  in  general  the  future  conquerors 
of  Britain  did  not  migrate  directly  or  en  masse  from  their 
northern  seats  but  had  been  busy  for  a  long  time  previously 
along  the  continental  shores  of  the  North  Sea  and  English 
Channel.  They  seem  in  fact  to  have  descended  by  land 
through  what  is  now  Hanover  to  Drenthe  and  Friesland  and 
the  other  Dutch  provinces  as  far  as  the  Rhine  and  the  Meuse, 
as  well  as  by  sea  to  the  outlet  of  the  Channel  into  the 
Atlantic,  before  the  actual  settlements  in  England  began. 
The  proofs  of  this  are  partly  literary  and  partly  monumental, 
and  the  monumental  proofs  are  furnished  very  largely  by 
pottery,  one  of  the  items  of  tomb  furniture  omitted  from 
consideration  in  the  chapters  dedicated  to  the  inventory,  and 
now  dealt  with  separately  in  connection  with  the  history  of 
the  migrations. 


OBJECTS  OF  SPECIAL  INTEREST  41 

It  will  accordingly  be  understood  that  the  matter  con- 
tained in  Chapters  x  and  following  is  envisaged  mainly  in  its 
historical  aspect.  Chapter  x  contains  a  notice  of  three  classes 
of  objects  found  in  Anglo-Saxon  graves  which  are  shown  there 
or  subsequently  to  possess  special  historical  significance, 
pottery,  inlaid  jewellery,  and  certain  early  works  in  bronze, 
while  the  later  chapters  in  the  volume  use  the  archaeological 
evidence  thus  acquired.  Pottery  of  a  certain  special  kind, 
Germanic  in  origin  but  possessing  features  that  come  from 
Romanized  lands,  is  found  in  the  supposed  original  northern 
seats  of  the  Teutonic  invaders  of  England  and  throughout  all 
the  regions  to  the  west  and  south  as  far  as  Belgium,  which 
there  is  reason  to  believe  that  they  occupied  before  and  at  the 
date  of  the  inroads  upon  Britain.  Pottery  of  exactly  the 
same  kind  is  found  over  a  considerable  part  of  Teutonized 
England,  but  is  more  characteristic  of  the  north,  the  northern 
midlands,  and  East  Anglia,  than  of  the  regions  of  the  Thames 
Valley  and  the  southern  counties.  This  pottery  is  found  on 
the  Continent,  as  well  in  Schleswig  the  supposed  home  of 
the  '  Angles '  as  in  the  regions  from  the  Elbe  southwards 
and  westwards  appropriated  by  the  '  Saxons ' ;  and  in  our  own 
country  while  it  is  specially  abundant  and  shows  best  its 
characteristic  qualities  in  '  Anglian '  regions,  it  is  also  found 
in  *  Saxon '  surroundings.  There  is  monumental  evidence 
here  not  only  of  the  diffusion  west  and  south  of  the  con- 
tinental Saxons  and  of  the  Teutonic  migration  across  the 
North  Sea,  but  of  the  fact  that  there  can  have  been  no  strongly 
marked  differences  between  the  Saxons  and  the  Angles. 
Incidentally  moreover  this  pottery  leads  to  a  consideration  of 
the  relation  in  the  migration  period  of  the  two  methods  of 
disposing  of  the  bodies  of  the  dead,  by  burning  and  by  burial. 

Beside  the  pottery  another  important  class  of  objects 
found  in  the  cemeteries  was  withdrawn  from  discussion  in  the 
inventory,  and  this  was  done  because  the  objects  in  question 
possess  connections  ithat  carry  them   far  beyond  the  strictly 


42  INTRODUCTORY 

Anglo-Saxon  sphere,  and  cast  a  light  upon  ethnographical 
questions  that  concern  the  Teutonic  migrations  at  large,  as 
well  as  on  the  special  position  occupied  by  Kent  among  our 
Anglo-Saxon  districts. 

The  student  of  the  antiquities  of  Kent  soon  comes  to  the 
same  conclusion  that  is  forced  on  the  investigator  into  its 
social  customs  and  its  legal  and  monetary  system,  the  con- 
clusion that  its  Teutonic  settlers  were  different  from  those 
who  occupied  other  parts  of  the  island.  As  will  be  seen  in 
the  case  of  Bifrons,  the  tomb  furniture  recovered  from 
Kentish  cemeteries  is  abundant  in  quantity  and  on  the  whole 
rich,  elaborate,  and  artistically  beautiful,  and  it  is  in  many 
ways  strikingly  unlike  what  is  found  in  Saxon  and  Anglian 
districts.  This  is  all  in  favour  of  Bede's  ascription  of  the 
conquest  and  settlement  to  the  Jutes.  The  continental 
affinities  of  this  tomb  furniture  afford  support  to  the  hypo- 
thesis that  the  Jutish  invasion  did  not  start  directly  from  their 
northern  seats  but  from  intermediate  regions  opposite  our 
south-eastern  coasts.  Kentish  tomb  furniture  does  not  remind 
us  of  what  we  find  in  northern  Germany  and  Scandinavia  but 
of  Rhineland  work,  and  to  some  extent  of  the  tomb  furniture 
of  the  Franks,  though  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  assume  that 
Frankish  work  in  general  is  the  prototype  of  what  we  find  in 
Kent.  Resemblances  exist  but  differences  are  much  more 
marked,  and  the  English  work  is  quite  independent  and  at  the 
same  time  is  of  special  interest  and  beauty.  Its  most  charac- 
teristic form,  inlaid  gold  jewellery,  is  of  central  European 
origin  and  is  not  characteristic  of  the  North.  The  tradition  of 
it  probably  reached  the  Jutes  from  the  direction  of  the  Rhine 
to  which  region  it  had  been  imported  up  the  Danube  valley 
from  seats  of  culture  further  to  the  east.  The  same  tradition 
had  been  introduced  into  Gaul  by  its  Frankish  conquerors  in 
V,  and  the  earliest  work  of  the  kind  found  in  Kent  is  of 
Frankish  origin  or  closely  copied  from  Frankish  models. 
Later  on  however  this  particular  kind  of  work  develops  in 


INFLUENCE  OF  FRANKISH  ART  43 

Kent  to  forms  that  are  quite  distinct  from  those  characteristic 
of  Merovingian  Gaul.  The  relations  in  this  matter  between 
the  two  countries  are  typical  of  the  position  they  occupy 
towards  each  other  in  connection  with  cultural  forms  in 
general,  and  upon  this  a  word  may  profitably  be  said. 

The  Franks  were  the  nearest  neighbours  of  our  Anglo- 
Saxon  forefathers,  and  from  their  comparatively  early  accept- 
ance of  Christianity  and  their  occupation  of  a  land  far  more 
thoroughly  Romanized  than  had  ever  been  the  case  with 
Britain  they  were  in  VI  considerably  in  advance  of  them  in 
culture.  This  would  make  it  probable  that  Gallic  influence 
would  affect  the  artistic  and  industrial  products  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  and  it  is  true  that  this  influence  is  sufficiently  dis- 
cernible, though  the  extent  of  it  is  very  commonly  over- 
estimated. In  architecture  this  influence  is  to  be  detected  in 
some  of  our  earliest  Christian  churches,1  and  in  coinage  as  we 
shall  see  Merovingian  example  was  at  first  very  potent,  but 
in  both  these  forms  of  art  Anglo-Saxon  independence  soon 
asserted  itself,  and  it  will  be  noted  presently  how  full  of 
individual  character  are  the  early  sceattas.  In  the  matter  of 
tomb  furniture  in  general  the  surprising  thing  is,  not  that 
Frankish  imported  objects  and  objects  fashioned  at  home  on 
Frankish  models  should  come  to  light  in  our  cemeteries,  but 
that  these  occurrences  should  be  as  rare  as  in  fact  they  are. 
In  objects  that  are  of  the  same  kind  on  the  two  sides  of  the 
Channel  Anglo-Saxon  work  has  its  own  character  and  can 
easily  be  distinguished  from  Merovingian,  while  there  are 
whole  classes  of  objects  common  in  Frankish  cemeteries  that 
make  no  appearance  at  all  in  our  own.  A  chronological  reason 
for  this  is  suggested  in  the  chapter  on  the  cemetery  (p.  174  f.). 

Passing  now  to  the  archaeological  evidence  concerning  the 
actual  settlement  of  the  Teutons   in   England,  we   find  our- 
selves confronted  by  a  considerable  array  of  facts  on  which 
1  The  Arts  in  Early  England,  11,  322  f. 


44  INTRODUCTORY 

some  very  solid  inferences  can  be  based,  as  well  as  by  phenomena 
of  a  less  definite,  if  not  of  an  illusive,  kind,  that  offer  dangerous 
temptations  in  the  way  of  the  weaving  of  hypotheses.  It  is  no 
part  of  the  scheme  of  this  book  altogether  to  eschew  hypotheses, 
for  these  are  part  of  the  legitimate  machinery  for  increasing 
the  fabric  of  knowledge,  but  a  conjecture  should  bear  its 
character  on  its  face  and  not  masquerade  as  a  self-evident 
truth  or  a  logical  inference  from  sufficient  premises.  In  the 
systematic  though  brief  survey  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  cemeteries 
which  occupies  Chapters  xi  and  following,  there  will  be  a 
place  for  noticing  what  is  possible  or  probable  as  well  as  what 
is  reasonably  certain  as  a  deduction  from  the  appearances  that 
the  spade  has  revealed.  In  this  connection  reference  must  be 
made  to  a  small  book  of  great  usefulness  published  at  the 
close  of  1 9 13  by  Mr.  E.  Thurlow  Leeds  of  the  Ashmolean 
Museum  at  Oxford.  It  is  entitled  The  Archaeology  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  Settlements1  and  in  the  compass  of  its  140  pages  it 
contains  a  wealth  of  accurate  and  well-digested  information 
as  to  the  amount  and  character  of  the  archaeological  evidence 
available  in  regard  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  conquest  of  England. 
Mr  Leeds  has  pursued  his  researches  into  North  Germany 
and  Schleswig-Holstein,  and  taken  up  after  a  long  interval  the 
inquiry  set  on  foot  by  Kemble  as  to  the  bearing  of  antiquarian 
discoveries  in  these  regions  on  Anglo-Saxon  questions.  The 
writer  takes  this  early  opportunity  of  expressing  his  sense  of 
the  value  of  Mr  Leeds's  work,  to  which  reference  will  re- 
peatedly be  made  in  the  latter  portions  of  the  present  study. 

In  this  place  opportunity  may  be  taken  to  put  into  a  few 
words  one  or  two  outstanding  results  of  the  comparative 
study  of  the  phenomena  in  question. 

I.  There  are  objects  of  a  certain  class  that  have  been  omitted 

from  consideration  in  the  inventory,  owing  to  the  fact  that 

historical  inferences  of  some  importance  can  be  drawn  from 

them,  and  that  this  gives  them  a  claim  to  special  treatment. 

1  Oxford,  at  the  Clarendon  Press,  191 3. 


SIGNIFICANCE  OF  SPECIAL  FINDS  45 

They  are  objects  in  cast  bronze,  for  the  most  part  in  the  form 
of  buckles,  that  are  of  special  interest  on  two  grounds.  One 
ground  is  their  obviously  close  connection  with  Roman  work 
which  is  always  their  ultimate  source  of  origin,  though  they 
vary  in  their  degree  of  adherence  to  their  prototypes.  The 
other  ground  is  their  early  date  which  gives  significance  to 
their  appearance  in  the  localities  where  they  are  found.  Other 
articles  found  in  association  with  these  are  thereby  proved  to 
be  of  contemporary  date,  and  we  are  thus  furnished  with 
a  set  of  objects  of  known  early  date  and  of  Anglo-Saxon 
provenance,  the  appearance  of  which  in  any  locality  carries 
with  it  chronological  significance.  Now  in  various  parts  of 
England  there  have  come  to  light  objects  of  this  kind  that 
seem  to  antedate  the  historically  attested  settlements.  These 
settlements  are  supposed  to  have  begun  in  the  second  quarter 
of  V  and  to  have  been  in  progress  during  the  next  hundred 
years,  but  some  scattered  archaeological  finds  of  the  sort  here 
noticed  appear  to  attest  the  presence  in  the  island  of  Teutonic 
immigrants  or  raiders  at  an  earlier  date.  Objects  not  so 
specially  early  but  belonging  at  any  rate  to  V  are  not 
uncommon,  and  where  they  make  their  appearance  we  can 
assume  a  corresponding  period  for  the  settlement  of  those 
particular  portions  of  the  country.  Many  years  ago  Dr. 
Bernhard  Salin  called  attention  to  the  significance  of  these 
early  finds,1  and  he  laid  down  the  general  rule  that  early 
objects  found  in  the  northern  parts  of  the  island  have 
affinities  with  Scandinavian  and  North  German  products, 
whereas  similar  articles  that  come  to  light  south  of  the 
Thames  find  their  prototypes  in  the  Romanized  lands  along 
the  Rhine  and  in  Gaul.  This  division  we  shall  see  to  hold 
in  the  main  though  it  is  not  so  absolute  as  it  is  sometimes 
made  out  to  be. 

II.  The  location  of  the  early  objects  in  question  conveys  a 
significant  indication  of  the  manner  of  the  Teutonic  immigra- 
1  Kon.  Vitterhets  Hist,  och  Ant.  Akademiens  Manadsblad,  for  1 894. 


46  INTRODUCTORY 

tion.  They  are  almost  always  discovered  in  riparian  cemeteries, 
in  localities  easily  reached  by  ascending  the  rivers  which 
discharge  their  waters  into  the  German  Ocean.  The  most 
important  of  these  waterways  is  the  Thames,  and  it  is  a  fact 
of  much  significance  that  on  the  banks  of  the  Thames,  and  of 
its  tributaries  near  where  they  join  it,  a  fair  number  of  these 
early  objects  have  come  to  light.  The  bearing  of  these  dis- 
coveries on  the  question  of  the  position  at  the  time  of  London 
is  obvious.  Some  antiquaries,  who  base  their  opinions  on 
some  very  remarkable  and  quite  pertinent  phenomena  of 
London  life  and  history,  credit  the  future  metropolis  with  a 
quasi-independence  maintained  at  a  time  when  other  parts  of 
the  country  had  passed  under  the  power  of  the  invaders.  Such 
a  London  would  be  expected  to  offer  a  serious  if  not  insur- 
mountable barrier  to  the  ascent  of  the  river  by  a  hostile  force, 
yet  archaeological  evidence  seems  to  show  that  the  keels  of  the 
sea-rovers  made  an  early  appearance  along  its  upper  reaches. 
These  early  finds  begin  on  the  northern  coast  of  Kent  near 
the  mouth  of  the  Medway  and  continue  into  Surrey,  especially 
up  the  lateral  valley  of  the  Wandle,  and  into  Middlesex  as  at 
Shepperton,  while  the  most  remarkable  discovery  in  the  whole 
country  for  its  apparently  early  indications  came  to  light  at 
Dorchester-on-Thames  in  Oxfordshire,  and  objects  from 
riparian  cemeteries  up  almost  to  the  source  of  the  stream 
convey  the  same  sort  of  impression.  It  should  be  said  that 
the  riverside  burying-grounds  in  the  north-west  part  of  Kent 
cannot  be  regarded  as  of  the  same  class  as  the  normal  cemeteries 
of  the  Jutish  population  in  the  inland  and  more  easterly  parts 
of  the  county.  For  one  thing  they  are  in  part  cremation 
cemeteries,  whereas  no  example  of  cremation  in  Kent  generally 
is  known  to  be  of  Jutish  date  and  origin,  and  these  cremated 
burials  seem  to  belong  to  the  folk  that  made  their  way  into 
the  interior  up  the  Thames  Valley  and  founded  there  the 
kingdom  of  the  West  Saxons. 

The  streams  that  empty  themselves  into  the  Wash  appear 


JUTES,  SAXONS,  AND  ANGLES  47 

also  to  have  attracted  betimes  the  invading  galleys,  for  finds 
of  a  very  early  character  are  reported  from  the  upper  part  of 
the  valley  of  the  Bedfordshire  Ouse,  at  Kempston  above  the 
county  town,  and  the  same  may  be  said  about  the  valley  of  the 
Nene  that  intersects  Northamptonshire. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  these  early  finds  as  often  as  not 
indicate  the  presence  of  women.  In  the  case  of  the  Teutonic 
migrations  in  general  the  moving  mass  was  made  up  of  families 
not  individual  men-at-arms,  and  the  women  accompanied  their 
husbands  and  fathers  along  the  march  and  to  the  verge  of  the 
battlefield.  So  in  the  English  settlement,  the  invaders,  when 
they  came  in  mass  determined  to  remain,  brought  their  families 
with  them,  but  on  raiding  expeditions  that  presumably  preceded 
the  actual  migrations  we  should  expect  the  warriors  to  move 
?  without  encumbrances.'  The  finds  however  as  indicated 
above  seem  to  attest  the  presence  of  women  even  in  the  earlier 
stages  of  the  westward  movement.  Possibly  these  were  ladies 
of  the  Amazonian  temper. 

III.  The  question  of  the  ethnic  relationships  of  the 
Teutonic  settlers  in  England  has  been  recently  discussed  in 
Professor  Chadwick's  Origin  of  the  English  Nation.  While 
emphasizing  the  separate  position  of  the  Jutes  he  doubts 
whether  any  real  distinction  can  be  made,  so  far  as  our  own 
country  is  concerned,  between  Saxons  and  Angles,  and  is  dis- 
posed to  see  evidence  of  only  two  races  among  our  conquerors 
— Jutes  and  Anglo-Saxons.  Many  considerations  have  here 
to  be  taken  into  account,  considerations  of  language,  customs, 
national  traditions,  and  the  like,  all  of  which  are  noticed  in  the 
work  just  mentioned.  Archaeological  facts  have  also  a  place 
and  an  important  one  in  the  discussion,  and  one  of  the  objects 
kept  in  view  in  the  historical  portions  of  these  volumes  is  the 
marshalling  of  these  facts  so  as  to  bear  on  the  ethnic  question. 
It  may  be  noticed  here  that  Professor  Chadwick  singles  out 
the  East  Saxons  of  Essex  as  the  people  whose  national  traditions 
seem  to  give  them  the  best  claim  to  a  distinctively  Saxon,  or 


48  INTRODUCTORY 

non-Anglian,  origin,  and  the  evidence  of  archaeological  dis- 
coveries in  Essex  appears  to  mark  this  territory  off  somewhat 
sharply  from  the  Anglian  regions  to  the  west  and  north. 

IV.  One  of  the  most  remarkable  archaeological  facts  con- 
nected with  the  Germanic  invasion  of  this  country  is  the 
complete  absence  from  the  most  northerly  parts  of  Teutonized 
Britain  of  any  monumental  remains  of  the  pagan  period  of 
Anglian  civilization.  This  part  of  the  country  is  particularly 
rich  in  monuments  of  the  Early  Christian  period,  when  in  VII 
and  the  first  part  of  VIII  Northumbria  was  a  centre  and  source 
of  learning  and  art  for  the  whole  country.  The  Teutonic 
cemeteries  of  the  pagan  period  however,  so  numerous  and  so  pro- 
ductive in  the  midland  and  southern  districts  of  England, 
practically  cease  at  the  Tees,  north  of  which  there  have  been 
very  few  evidences  of  their  existence,  while  in  Northumbria 
north  of  the  Roman  Wall,  and  in  southern  Scotland  that  was 
at  one  time  Anglian  as  far  as  the  Forth,  not  a  single  relic  of 
early  Anglian  civilization  of  the  pagan  period  has  come  to 
light.1  There  is  one  urn  of  Anglian  type  in  the  Museum  of 
Antiquities  at  Edinburgh  that  has  not  escaped  the  vigilant 
eyes  of  Mr.  Reginald  Smith  who  called  the  writer's  attention 
to  it.  This  is  supposed  to  have  been  found  at  Buchan  in 
Aberdeenshire,  but  unfortunately  there  is  no  distinct  record  of 
the  discovery,  and  it  would  be  unsafe  to  build  anything  upon  it. 

This  complete  dearth  of  monumental  evidence  for  an 
Anglian  occupation  of  the  Lothians  in  the  pagan  period  is  a 
striking  fact  when  it  is  brought  into  contrast  with  the 
abundant  but  more  or  less  legendary  material  of  a  literary 
kind  that  points  to  considerable  activity  on  the  part  of  the 
invaders  at  an  early  date  in  these  particular  regions  of  the 
north.     The  contradiction  will  be  noticed  later  on  (p.  760). 

The  archaeological  evidence  thus  briefly  summarized  con- 
cerns, first,  the  pre- history  of  the  English  conquest  of  Britain, 
if  the  expression  be  allowed,  and,  next,  the  date,  conditions, 
1  See  however  for  a  very  recent  discovery  (p.  812  f.). 


CONTRAST  OF  FRANCE  AND  ENGLAND         49 

and  direction  of  the  actual  invasions  ;  on  a  third  point,  the 
circumstances  of  the  ultimate  settling  down,  archaeological 
discoveries  may  be  found  to  shed  some  light. 

The  labours  of  three  generations  of  historians  from 
'  Saxon '  Kemble  through  E.  A.  Freeman  and  his  followers  to 
the  writers  of  the  present  day  have  not  fully  elucidated  the 
conditions  of  the  Teutonic  settlement  of  England,  nor  ex- 
plained why  the  ethnic  results  of  it  have  been  so  different 
from  those  following  the  Frankish  conquest  of  Gaul. 
Romanized  Gaul  was  invaded  by  land  from  the  north-east  by 
two  divisions  of  a  powerful  Teutonic  race  made  up  of  course 
of  varied  elements,  and  the  first  division,  that  of  the  Salian 
Franks,  under  a  leader  of  some  genius,  made  itself  undisputed 
master  of  the  whole  country  save  the  Visigothic  corner  to  the 
south-west.  The  Frankish  race  contained  sufficient  elements 
of  power  to  raise  it  after  a  couple  of  centuries  to  a  position  of 
supremacy  in  western  Europe  and  to  evolve  as  its  representa- 
tive and  head  the  greatest  ruler  that  the  Teutonic  stock  has 
ever  produced.  But  is  France  at  the  present  day  a  Frankish 
or  even  a  Teutonic  land  ?  In  language,  in  national  character, 
and  to  an  overmastering  extent  in  appearance,  the  Gallo- 
Roman  elements  in  the  population  immeasurably  preponderate, 
and  the  most  distinctive  intellectual  quality  of  the  cultured 
Frenchman,  his  love  of  lucidity  and  sense  of  form,  is  an 
essentially  southern  characteristic.  In  England  on  the  other 
hand,  though  there  is  here  and  there  a  recrudescence  of  some 
very  old  elements  in  the  population,  the  Romano-British 
element  is  really  hardly  in  evidence.  It  is  true  that  we 
experience  in  England  a  periodically  recurring  phase  of  feeling 
that  works  for  the  rehabilitation  of  ancient  stocks,  and  seeks 
to  establish  a  substantial  Celtic  (or  even  neolithic)  element  in  our 
existing  civilization,  but  the  results  are  practically  negligible. 
In  every  characteristic  that  can  be  adduced,  physical,  intel- 
lectual, or  moral,  we  are  preponderatingly  Teutonic,  the  non- 
Teutonic  hardly  counting  at  all.     It  is  curious  too  how  the 

III  D 


50  INTRODUCTORY 

supposed  normal  type  of  the  Anglo-Saxon,  already  referred  tc 
as  *  rather  stolid  and  heavy,'  is  just  the  type  that  to  this  day  ir 
popular  estimation  represents  the  average  Englishman,  for  the 
figure  of  c  John  Bull '  made  classic  in  the  cartoons  of  Punch  is 
just  the  figure  of  the  supposed  Anglo-Saxon  farmer  of  the 
days  before  the  Norman  Conquest.  What  differences,  we  maj 
ask,  in  the  conditions  of  the  Germanic  conquest  of  the  twc 
countries  account  for  a  Gallo-Roman  France  and  a  Teutonic 
England  ?  The  indigenous  population  of  the  former  countr) 
survived,  we  must  assume,  and  has  gradually  reasserted  itself 
but  in  the  case  of  our  own  country  of  such  a  survival  there  ij 
little  evidence. 

What  became  of  the  Romano-British  population  after  the 
Germanic  Conquest  is  a  question  that  has  never  been  satis- 
factorily settled.  Few  people  at  the  present  day  find  thinkable 
the  old  theory  of  the  extermination  by  the  conquerors  of  the 
British  race  over  all  the  eastern  and  central  parts  of  England. 
That  the  country  was  turned  into  one  vast  Anderida  while  the 
Saxons  and  Angles  *  slew  all  that  dwelt  therein  '  so  that  *  nol 
even  one  Briton  was  there  left '  does  not  commend  itself  to  the 
humane  descendent  of  the  sea-rovers  in  question,  but  then  on 
the  other  hand  what  did  become  of  the  Britons  ?  They  were 
presumably  more  numerous  than  the  invaders  and  certainly 
more  civilized,  while  the  defence  they  set  up  proves  them  by 
no  means  devoid  of  spirit.  The  extermination  of  such  a 
population  by  a  smaller  number  of  hardier  and  more  savage 
assailants  is  of  course  possible,  but  even  if  such  a  fate  overtook 
the  British  men  the  women  might  have  been  to  a  considerable 
extent  saved  alive.  If  the  result  of  the  conquest  were 
expatriation  rather  than  massacre  then  the  British  women 
would  doubtless  accompany  their  menkind  into  exile.  Sup- 
posing on  the  other  hand  there  had  ensued  a  peaceable  settling 
down  side  by  side  of  the  two  races,  one  would  imagine  the 
fair  British  maiden,  with  attractions  enhanced  by  a  refining 
touch  of  classical  culture  and  perhaps   by  Christian   graces, 


CONTINUITY  OF  BRITISH  AND  SAXON  51 

exercising  considerable  influence  over  the  minds  of  the  hardy 
immigrants.  In  such  circumstances,  as  on  the  other  alterna- 
tive of  a  cutting  off  of  the  British  male  population,  inter- 
marriages between  the  two  races  might  be  expected  to  follow, 
and  such  unions  would  leave  some  material  traces  in  the 
cemeteries. 

A  certain  amount  of  material  evidence  bearing  on  this 
historical  problem  receives  notice  in  the  following  pages  and 
it  will  be  convenient  here  briefly  to  summarize  it.  In  the 
Chapter  on  the  Anglo-Saxon  cemetery  it  is  pointed  out  that 
there  is  a  certain  amount  of  continuity  between  Celtic  and 
Germanic  civilization  in  the  common  use  of  cemeteries  though 
there  is  no  proof  of  continuity  in  the  matter  of  places  of 
residence.  Exploration  of  the  cemeteries  might  be  expected 
to  produce  evidence  of  two  kinds  bearing  on  this  subject, 
ostiological  evidence  and  that  derived  from  tomb  furniture. 
If  the  victorious  Anglo-Saxon  warrior  wooed  or  appropriated 
the  British  maiden  as  his  bride,  in  that  case  the  lady's  bones 
would  rest  with  her  lord's  in  the  local  cemetery,  and  there  the 
modern  craniologist  might  now  conceivably  sort  them  apart, 
while  the  antiquary  was  finding  a  racial  difference  in  their 
grave-goods.  On  the  craniological  evidence,  which  is  against 
intermarriage,  a  word  is  said  in  the  Chapter  on  the  cemetery 
(p.  1  84  f.),  but  on  the  latter  possibility  the  following  may  here 
find  a  place.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  Romano- 
British  population  was  in  matters  of  art  more  advanced  than 
the  Teutonic  immigrants,  and  if  British  ladies  had  exercised  rule 
in  the  new  homesteads  they  would  certainly  have  introduced 
therein  their  own  style  in  trinkets  and  in  ornaments.  Anglo- 
Saxon  art  would  in  this  manner  have  taken  on  a  decided  Roman 
or  Late-Celtic  tinge,  and  had  any  appreciable  number  of  the 
women  sprung  from  the  British  race  their  personal  belongings 
would  certainly  have  been  of  a  less  pronounced  Germanic  type 
than  those  of  the  men.  As  a  matter  of  fact  this  difference  is 
not  apparent.     Here  and  there  some  isolated  object  comes  to 


52  INTRODUCTORY 

light  in  an  Anglo-Saxon  grave  that  is  recognized  as  Roman  or 
Celtic,  and  this  is  so  natural  a  phenomenon  that  one  wonders  it 
is  not  far  more  in  evidence  than  is  actually  the  case.  Such 
casual  appearances  can  in  no  way  support  the  hypothesis  of 
intermarriage,  and  it  may  be  affirmed  without  hesitation  that 
no  distinction  between  Teutonic  and  Celtic  elements  in  the 
Anglo-Saxon  population  is  normally  to  be  observed  in  the 
tomb  furniture  of  the  cemeteries. 

This  saving  word  has  been  introduced  because,  not  nor- 
mally but  by  way  of  exception,  appearances  present  themselves 
in  connection  with  the  cemeteries  that  have  a  direct  bearing 
on  the  relation  between  the  two  races.  Continuity  in  the  use 
of  burying-grounds  is  dealt  with  in  Chapter  in  (p.  130  f.) 
where  it  will  be  seen  that  this  is  not  as  a  rule  direct  continuity 
so  much  as  a  return  to  conditions  prior  to  the  Romano- 
British  period.  It  was  not  the  urban  cemeteries  attached  to 
the  Romanized  towns  that  the  Anglo-Saxons  sometimes  used, 
but  rather  the  earlier  Celtic  cemeteries  of  the  Bronze  Age 
which  suited  the  immigrants  in  that  they  were  country  ones. 
Anglo-Saxon  burying-grounds  are  independent  of  the  Romano- 
British  town  cemeteries,  but  at  the  same  time  early  Anglo- 
Saxon  cemeteries  are  sometimes  found  in  curiously  close 
contiguity  with  a  known  site  where  a  British  population 
remained  in  force,  and  this  is  another  fact  of  which  to  take 
account.  The  connection  of  Harnham  Hill  cemetery  south 
of  Salisbury  and  the  settlement  which  it  must  have  served, 
with  the  ancient  Sorbiodunum,  Old  Sarum,  five  miles  to  the 
north,  or  with  the  nearer  British  community  supposed  to  be 
attested  by  the  name  c  Britford,'  is  a  matter  quite  of  specula- 
tion, but  the  case  of  Fairford  in  Gloucestershire  gives  us 
something  far  more  definite. 

There  is  an  explicit  statement  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle, 
ad  ann.  577,  that  in  this  year  the  West  Saxon  king  Ceawlin 
after  a  great  victory  over  the  British  forces  at  Deorham  *  took 
three  cities  from  them,  Gloucester,  and  Cirencester,  and  Bath.' 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  FAIRFORD  53 

It  is  quite  in  accordance  with  what  we  know  of  this  part  of 
England  at  the  time  to  find  these  old  Roman  towns  still  held 
in  force  by  the  Britons.  The  pressure  of  the  invading 
Teutons  towards  the  west  had  been  checked  sixty  years 
earlier  by  the  great  British  victory  of  the  Mons  Badonicus, 
and  Gildas,  who  writes  about  the  middle  of  the  interval 
between  Mons  Badonicus  and  Deorham  gives  us  a  picture  of 
an  England  the  western  parts  of  which  were  still  held  by  his 
own  British  countrymen.  If  this  were  the  case  until  the 
eventful  year  577  can  we  picture  to  ourselves  a  peaceable 
Saxon  community  settled  at  Fairford  for  at  least  a  genera- 
tion before  that  time  ?  Fairford  is  only  some  eight  or  nine 
miles  from  Cirencester  one  of  the  British  centres  of  power 
prior  to  Ceawlin's  victory,  and  one  would  imagine  that  an 
actively  hostile  Cirencester  would  make  the  position  at  Fair- 
ford untenable,  yet  the  archaeological  evidence  of  the  finds  on 
the  site  points  to  the  use  of  the  Fairford  cemetery  by  an 
Anglo-Saxon  community  for  a  good  many  years  before  577. 
Either  the  indications  of  an  early  date  for  some  of  the  Fair- 
ford grave-goods  are  fallacious  and  the  place  was  not  really 
settled  till  after  577,  or  else  the  relations  between  the  neigh- 
bouring Saxon  and  British  communities  were  not  actively 
hostile.  This  last  hypothesis,  that  a  certain  modus  vivendi 
existed  or  might  exist  at  various  times  and  places  between  the 
two  antagonistic  populations,  is  one  worthy  of  some  considera- 
tion. It  is  enough  here  for  the  moment  to  envisage  it  from 
the  archaeological  side. 

Apart  from  those  sporadic  appearances  of  objects  of 
Romano-British  character  in  this  or  that  Anglo-Saxon 
cemetery  to  which  reference  has  been  made,  there  are  certain 
classes  of  objects  of  more  frequent  occurrence  in  tomb 
inventories  that  do  suggest  some  relations  between  British  and 
Anglo-Saxon  craftsmanship  the  nature  of  which  is  at  present 
concealed  from  us.  In  the  chapters  on  tomb  furniture,  in 
connection  with  necklets  (Ch.  ix),  with  pendants  (ibid.),  and 


54  INTRODUCTORY 

with  the  mountings  of  bronze  bowls  (ibid.),  we  are  brought 
into  contact  with  processes  and  ornamental  motives  that  are 
not  Anglo-Saxon  but  Celtic,  and  the  appearance  of  which  in 
the  midst  of  so  much  that  is  purely  Teutonic  is  an  interesting 
but  enigmatical  fact,  of  which  the  historical  student  may  be 
glad  to  take  account. 

This  Introductory  Chapter  can  hardly  be  allowed  to  close 
without  one  word  of  a  personal  kind  relating  to  the  long  space 
of  time  that  has  intervened  between  the  publication  of  the 
first  two  volumes  of  this  work  and  the  issue  of  the  present 
continuation.  The  delay  was  due  in  the  first  place  to  the 
fact  that  before  the  actual  appearance  of  those  first  two 
volumes,  with  a  certain  optimistic  underrating  of  the  time  it 
takes  to  write  a  book,  the  writer  had  pledged  himself  to  carry 
out  certain  literary  tasks  in  other  fields  of  study.  The 
invitations  thus  with  a  light  heart  accepted  were  not  of  a  kind 
which  the  writer  in  the  position  he  holds  could  have  suitably 
declined  ;  or  which,  to  take  another  ground,  his  circumstances 
justified  him  in  refusing.  As  a  fact  it  has  meant  the  prepara- 
tion of  more  than  half  a  dozen  volumes,  or  Encyclopaedia 
articles  as  long  as  a  volume,  on  different  subjects  within  the 
writer's  province  as  the  holder  of  a  Chair  of  Fine  Art,  and 
with  limited  leisure  such  volumes  are  not  written  in  a  day. 
Hence  it  was  made  inevitable  that  even  the  commencement  of 
this  continuation  of  the  Arts  in  Early  England  should  be 
delayed.  When  the  task  moreover  was  actually  taken  up  it 
had  assumed  a  different  form  from  that  originally  contem- 
plated. The  original  purpose  of  the  writer  was  to  follow  the 
volume  on  Anglo-Saxon  ecclesiastical  architecture  with  one 
merely  concerned  with  the  church  fittings,  the  carved  stones, 
the  manuscripts,  etc.,  of  the  Christian  period.  Reflection 
showed  however  that  such  a  treatment  would  leave  out  of 
sight  that  very  considerable  development  of  Anglo-Saxon  art 
which  was  independent  of  church  matters  and  belonged  on  the 


A  PERSONAL  EXPLANATION  55 

whole  to  the  earlier  pagan  period.  At  this  juncture  the 
writer  was  invited  by  the  Society  of  Antiquaries  of  Scotland  to 
prepare  a  set  of  Rhind  Lectures  on  the  Art  of  the  Period  of 
the  Teutonic  Migrations,  a  subject  embracing  that  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  art  in  the  pagan  period  but  of  far  broader  scope.  The 
collection  of  materials  for  this  task  involved  extended  travel 
and  study  in  the  chief  Museums  of  Europe  with  a  correspond- 
ing expenditure  of  time,  but  it  had  the  advantage  of  placing 
the  writer  in  a  position  to  envisage  the  subject  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  art  from  the  standpoint  of  a  wide  survey  of  the  artistic 
activities  of  the  whole  Germanic  race.  Hence  when,  after  the 
lapse  of  years  that  had  passed  rapidly  away  though  they  were 
by  no  means  wasted,  the  writer  came  back  to  the  suspended 
labours,  it  was  with  an  enlarged  view  of  the  work  to  be  done 
and  with  a  considerable  increase  of  apparatus.  This  has  made 
the  book  a  longer  one  than  was  contemplated,  but  has  also,  it 
may  be  hoped,  materially  increased  its  value.  The  scope  of 
the  present  two  volumes  has  been  explained  in  this  Chapter. 
Full  of  matter  as  they  are,  the  scheme  of  treatment  is  after  all 
only  the  same  as  that  adopted  in  the  volume  on  Anglo-Saxon 
architecture.  A  reasonable  completeness  of  treatment  was 
there  aimed  at,  and  the  present  instalment  of  the  work  attempts 
the  same  both  in  the  matter  of  illustrations  and  in  that  of  text. 
How  far  the  labour  and  time  devoted  to  these  have  been  well 
spent  it  will  be  for  the  reader  to  say. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE   ARTISTIC   ASPECTS   OF   THE   EARLY 
ANGLO-SAXON   COINAGE 

Anglo-Saxon  coinage  is  represented  by  abundant  examples 
dating  from  VI  or  VII  to  the  Norman  Conquest,  and  these 
examples  offer  a  varied  selection  of  designs  that  are  in  many 
cases  of  considerable  artistic  interest.  The  branch  of  numis- 
matics concerned  with  these  issues,  both  in  the  kingdoms  of 
the  so-called  Heptarchy  and  in  the  united  Anglo-Saxon  realm, 
has  been  cultivated  with  some  ardour  from  the  days  of 
Lelewel  to  our  own,  but  it  still  offers  not  a  few  unsolved 
problems  to  the  inquirer.  It  is  undoubtedly  presumptuous  in 
one  who  is  not  a  numismatist  even  to  touch  a  subject  that  in 
some  respects  puzzles  even  the  specialist  in  the  science,  but  on 
the  other  hand  in  connection  with  the  present  study  the  coins 
possess  an  artistic  and  historical  importance  that  forces  them 
into  view,  and  to  ignore  them  through  motives  of  diffidence 
would  be  to  betray  in  a  somewhat  pusillanimous  fashion  the 
interest  of  the  inquiry  in  prospect. 

Anglo-Saxon  coins  may  be  divided  into  two  main  classes, 
distinct  in  artistic  character  as  well  as  in  their  historical  con- 
nections, while  a  third  class  of  smaller  extent  forms  in  a  sense 
a  link  between  the  two.  The  larger  class,  which  is  also  the 
later  in  point  of  time,  consists  in  the  c  penny '  series,  dating 
from  the  time  of  Offa  of  Mercia  to  the  Norman  Conquest 
(and  also  far  beyond  it),  and  embracing  specimens  of  the 
currency  issued  by,  or  in  the  reigns  of,  nearly  all  the  known 
kings  of  the  intervening  period.  The  pennies  are  almost 
always  inscribed  with  the  name,  and  often  stamped  with  the 


CLASSES  OF  ANGLO-SAXON  COINS  57 

effigy,  of  the  sovereign  or  the  ecclesiastical  dignitary  by  whom 
they  were  issued,  and  there  appears  frequently  on  the  reverse 
the  name  of  the  moneyer  who  struck  them,  with,  less  com- 
monly, their  place  of  origin.  Hence  the  members  of  the 
series  can  be  fixed  with  a  high  degree  of  certainty  both  as 
regards  time  and  locality. 

The  other  class  of  coins  is  of  earlier  date  and  while  prob- 
ably originating  VI  belongs  in  the  main  to  VII  and  VIII. 
The  pieces  are  known  as  *  Sceattas,' *  a  word  connected  with 
the  German  '  Schatz,'  treasure,  though  not,  as  was  formerly 
believed,  with  the  Old  English  'scot'  and  'shot.'  They  are 
of  great  artistic  interest  but  are  very  rarely  inscribed,  so  that 
in  dealing  with  them  conjecture  has  to  be  largely  employed. 
One  thing  which  is  certain  about  them  is  that  their  production 
ceased  on  the  appearance  of  the  penny  series,  but  how  long  this 
production  had  been  going  on  and  where  it  was  located  are 
matters  of  question.  The  third  class  of  smaller  extent  consists 
in  coins  belonging  to  the  ancient  Northumbria  and  known  as 
'  stycas  '  (German  '  Stuck,'  piece).  They  are  closely  connected 
at  one  end  with  the  sceatta  series,  but  they  possess  the  charac- 
teristic of  the  later  pennies  in  that  they  are  very  often  inscribed, 
and  this  gives  them  a  great  historical  value.  They  are  also 
current  to  a  later  date  than  the  sceattas  proper  and  overlap 
with  the  pennies,  remaining  indeed  in  use  in  the  north  till  the 
Danish  invasions  of  IX. 

For  the  present  purpose  the  sceattas,  the  earlier  enigmatical 
pieces,  are  of  more  importance  than  the  better  defined  later 
pennies,  though  these  have  also,  as  will  subsequently  be  seen, 
useful  lessons  for  the  student  of  Saxon  art  in  general.  This 
importance  and  this  usefulness  reside  in  the  fact  that  the  coins 
as  a  whole  exhibit  a  high  degree  of  technical  and  artistic  merit. 
The  reader  will  be  able  to  judge  of  this  from  examples  which 

1  According  to  the  Oxford  English  Dictionary  the  '  sc '  should  be  pro- 
nounced soft  like  <sh'  and  the  *e'  not  sounded,  so  that  the  word  should  be 
spoken  '  shattas.' 


58  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

will  presently  be  shown,  but  some  opinions  of  experts  may  here 
be  adduced.  In  the  British  Museum  Catalogue  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  series1  Mr.  Keary  stated  that  the  sceattas  were  'rich,  as 
few  coinages  of  the  world  are  rich,  in  the  variety  of  designs 
by  which  they  are  adorned,'  and  notes  '  the  varied  and  artistic 
designs  of  Offa's  pennies,'  that  '  have  always  been  celebrated 
for  their  artistic  excellence,  which  is  far  greater  than  that  dis- 
played by  any  other  Western  series  for  some  centuries,'  and 
whereon  the  busts  l  are  distinctly  original  in  character  and  are 
really  fine  examples  of  Anglo-Saxon  art,'  while  to  a  special 
East  Anglian  series  kfiown  as  '  St.  Edmund's  pennies '  is 
ascribed  '  extremely  neat  workmanship,  the  special  character- 
istics of  which  are  scarcely  to  be  matched  in  any  contemporary 
series  of  coins,  English  or  continental.'  If  this  praise  be 
discounted  as  proceeding  from  native  sources,  the  following 
sentences  from  Lelewel  may  be  found  more  convincing. 
Lelewel,2  who  may  be  called  the  father  of  modern  numis- 
matic study  at  any  rate  in  its  mediaeval  branch,  expresses 
with  due  critical  discernment  a  judgement  highly  favourable 
to  the  early  Mercian  pennies  both  as  regards  design  and 
execution,  while  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  pieces  in  general  he 
says  *  l'empreinte  etait  distinctement  imprimee.  Si  le  temps 
n'en  a  pas  efface  ou  enleve  quelques  parties,  il  est  presque 
impossible  de  trouver  sur  la  monnaye  Anglo-Saxonne  des 
lacunes  provenant  du  defaut  des  ouvriers  imprimeurs  :  comme 
cela  est  commun  aux  monnayeurs  du  continent.  La  gravure 
du  type  a  aussi  son  merite  particulier  ;  plus  soignee,  plus 
expressive,  elle  etait  plus  correcte  et  observait  plus  le  dessin  et 
les  ornemens.' 

1  A  Catalogue  of  English  Coins  in  the  British  Museum,  Anglo-Saxon  Series, 
London,  1887-93,  *>  xxii>  xxvii,  xxix,  lxxvi. 

2  1786-186 1,  'Polish  historian,  geographer,  and  numismatist'  (Enc.  Brit.). 
He  lived  in  exile  in  Brussels  for  the  last  thirty  years  of  his  life,  an  ardent 
student  and  writer.  The  work  quoted  from  is  his  Numismatique  du  Moyen 
Age,  Paris,  1835,  pt.  11,  p.  7. 


ROMAN  AND  GERMANIC  COINS 


All  enlarged  about  two  diameters 


IMPERIAL  ROMAN  'SOLIDI'  59 

Premising  that  the  subject  is  here  approached  from  the 
artistic  side,  we  may  now  go  on  to  give  some  account  of  the 
sceat  series,  reserving  for  a  future  volume  a  similar  notice  of 
the  stycas  and  the  pennies.  The  reason  for  this  separation  is 
that  the  sceattas  are  connected  both  in  time  and  place  with  the 
first  group  of  objects  representing  Anglo-Saxon  art  which  form 
the  subject  of  the  present  volumes,  whereas  the  stycas  and  later 
pennies  are  connected,  the  one  by  place  the  other  by  time, 
with  the  carved  stones,  manuscripts,  and  later  objects  generally, 
to  which  a  subsequent  volume  will  be  devoted. 

The  early  Anglo-Saxon  coinage  is  only  one  of  many  issued 
by  the  Teutonic  conquerors  of  the  western  Roman  empire. 
These  are  all  based  on  the  Roman  imperial  coinage  which  was 
at  first  imitated  as  closely  as  possible.  '  Tous  les  barbares,' 
write  Engel  and  Serrure,1  '  debuterent  dans  leur  monnayage 
par  la  copie  litterale  des  types  romains.'  The  most  important 
of  the  imperial  coins  were  the  gold  pieces  known  as  '  solidi 
aurei,'  or  simply  as  '  solidi '  or  '  aurei,'  the  first  issue  of  which 
is  ascribed  to  Constantine.  They  are  handsome  pieces,  rather 
larger  than  a  half-sovereign,  and,  as  struck  at  Byzantium, 
remained  through  the  early  middle  ages  the  chief  gold  coins 
of  the  West,  the  famous  '  bezants.'  The  imperial  gold  coins 
included  also  halves  and  thirds  of  the  solidus,  the  latter  under 
the  name  '  trientes '  of  much  importance  in  connection  with 
the  barbarian  currencies.  The  solidus  exhibited  on  the 
obverse  the  portrait  of  an  imperial  personage  either  of  the 
western  or  the  eastern  part  of  the  Empire  ;  the  representation 
was  at  first  in  profile,  but  from  the  time  of  Justinian,  VI, 
onwards  the  full  face  supersedes  it.  An  inscription  indicating 
the  name  and  titles  of  the  personage  accompanies  the  head  or 
bust ;  the  reverse  devices  are  multiform.  These  obverse 
types,  with  head  facing  or  profile,  and  many  of  the  numerous 
reverse  types  appear  in  a  more  or  less  degraded  form  on  the 
barbarian  coinages,  and  we  shall  meet  with  abundant  examples 

1  Traite  de  Numismatique  du  Moyen  Age,  Paris,  1891,  1,  16. 


60  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

as  we  proceed.  On  PI.  i,1  Nos.  i  and  2  show  two  Roman 
obverses  with  profile  heads,  one  helmed,  the  other  bound  with 
a  fillet,  and  No.  1  on  PI.  11  gives — in  a  barbarian  copy — a 
Roman  full-faced  head  of  the  Emperor  Maurice  Tiberius. 
The  reverses  of  the  coins  with  profile  heads  show  in  one 
case,  PI.  1,  2',  two  seated  imperial  personages  side  by  side 
with  the  upper  part  of  a  figure  of  Victory  above,  in  the  other, 
No.  i7,  two  captives  between  whom  is  a  standard  with  the 
letters  VOT  and  other  marks,  while  another  Roman  reverse 
on  the  same  plate,  No.  3,  exhibits  the  same  three  letters,  with 
others  below,  inscribed  upon  an  altar.  These  are  all  common 
types  that  reappear  on  early  Anglo-Saxon  and  other  Teutonic 
coins.  The  other  pieces  on  PI.  1  are  not  Roman  but  of  bar- 
barian origin  and  will  be  referred  to  later  on. 

The  barbarian  issues  are  numerous.  We  possess  coins 
issued  by  the  Vandals  in  Africa,  by  the  Suevi  and  the  Visigoths 
in  Spain,  by  the  Ostrogoths  and  the  Lombards  in  Italy,  and 
by  the  Burgundians  and  Franks  in  Gaul.  The  only  one  of 
these  coinages  that  need  be  noticed  here  is  that  of  the  Mero- 
vingian Franks,  for  the  reason  that  it  is  much  more  closely 
connected  with  that  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  than  is  the  case  with 
the  other  continental  issues.  Anglo-Saxon  coinage  owes 
much  to  that  of  the  Franks,  but  taking  the  latter  as  its  start- 
ing point  it  develops  on  lines  so  independent  that  it  furnishes 
a  striking  proof  of  vigour  and  originality  on  the  part  of  our 
native  craftsmen.  Coinage,  it  needs  hardly  to  be  said,  is  a 
form  of  art  wherein  absolute  originality  on  the  part  of  the 
barbarian  craftsman  is  in  the  nature  of  things  impossible.  It 
is  an  institution  of  comparatively  advanced  civilization,  and 
just  as  the  Teutonic  invaders  of  the  Empire  as  a  whole  were 
indebted  for  their  coinages  to  the  Romans,  so  the  compara- 
tively barbarous  Anglo-Saxons  depended  for  this  part  of  the 
apparatus  of  civilization  on  their  neighbours  the  semi-Romanized 

1  The  coins  on  this  and  on  succeeding  plates  are  as  a  rule  enlarged  in 
order  more  effectively  to  show  the  devices.     See  note  1  (p.  65). 


THE  FRANKISH  CURRENCY  61 

Franks.  It  does  not  of  course  follow  that  either  the  Teutons 
in  general  as  opposed  to  the  Romans,  or  the  Anglo-Saxons  in 
comparison  with  the  Franks,  were  similarly  dependent  as 
regards  other  products  and  forms  of  art.  The  barbarian  may 
dispose  of  weapons  and  objects  of  personal  adornment  that  are 
purely  native  alike  in  form  and  in  technique,  while  for  other 
objects  such  as  coins,  connected  with  a  state  of  civilization  at 
which  he  has  not  arrived,  he  may  adopt  the  productions  of 
more  advanced  peoples. 

Numismatic  history  among  the  Franks  begins  with  the 
coins  found  in  the  grave  of  Childeric,  the  chief  of  the  Salian 
Franks,  who  was  buried  at  Tournay  in  481  a.d.  When  this 
tomb  was  accidentally  discovered  in  the  year  1653  there  were 
found  therein  more  than  three  hundred  coins,  of  which  about 
a  hundred  were  golden  solidi  and  had  been  contained  in  a 
purse  or  pouch  worn  at  the  belt,  while  the  rest,  of  silver,  had 
probably  been  placed  at  the  feet  of  the  dead  in  some  kind  of 
casket.1  These  coins  were  all  either  in  an  official  sense  Roman 
or  had  been  carefully  copied  from  Roman  examples.  Clovis, 
the  son  of  Childeric,  and  the  kings  of  the  Franks  that  suc- 
ceeded him  struck  similar  aurei  with  Roman  types  and  inscrip- 
tions, but  with  certain  distinctive  marks,  such  as  the  *  C ' 
which  appears  on  coins  of  Clovis  himself.  It  was  reckoned  a 
striking  innovation  when,  about  the  year  540,  Theodebert  1, 
grandson  of  Clovis,  a  young  prince  of  brilliant  promise  and 
boundless  ambition,  issued  a  fine  coinage  of  gold  solidi,  on 
the  obverse  of  which  the  Roman  type,  a  conventional  full-face 
bust,  was  retained  but  was  understood  to  represent  himself, 
while  the  Roman  legend  around  it  was  replaced  by  his  own 
designation  reading  in  full  DOMINUS  NOSTER  THEO- 
DEBERTUS  VICTOR.  PL  i,  4,  4'  and  5  give  an  obverse 
and  two  reverses  of  Theodebert,  who  in  No.  5  is  represented 
as  treading  down  an  enemy.  In  an  often-quoted  passage 
Procopius2  tells  us  that  the  Franks  in  southern  Gaul  at  the 
1  Cochet,  Le  Tombeau  de  Childeric  I",  p.  409  f.     2  De  Bella  Goth'ico,  m,  33. 


62  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

time  he  was  writing  had  struck  gold  money  from  native 
Gallic  metal  and  had  substituted  their  own  effigy  for  the 
customary  imperial  device,  a  thing  that  neither  the  Persian 
monarch  nor  any  barbarian  ruler  had  ventured  to  do.  It  must 
be  observed  that  barbarian  princes  had  long  before  this  put 
their  names  on  their  coins,1  and  had  even  added  their  effigies, 
as  for  example  an  Ostrogothic  prince,  Theodahad,  who,  prob- 
ably in  $2>6 *  nad  issued  a  fine  bronze  piece  with  a  distinct 
and  individualized  portrait  of  himself  upon  it  which  can  be 
seen  PI.  i,  6.  The  moustache  is  here  characteristically 
Teutonic,  and  it  is  noteworthy  that  the  head  is  surmounted 
by  a  closed  crown  ornamented  by  jewels.  This  is  a  non- 
classical  feature  and  prefigures  the  employment  of  the  crown 
which  becomes  common  on  later  regal  heads.  He  wears  a 
cross  on  the  breast  and  his  robe  is  richly  jewelled.  The  point 
of  the  remark  by  Procopius  is  that  these  named  and  iconic 
barbarian  coins  of  V  and  VI  had  been  in  the  less  precious 
metals,  and  constituted  no  invasion  of  the  jealously  guarded 
imperial  privilege  of  issuing  pieces  in  gold.  This  privilege 
the  young  Frankish  monarch  now  boldly  challenged.  So 
excellent  in  technique,  so  even  in  intrinsic  quality,  were  the 
numerous  aurei  of  Theodebert,  that  M.  Deloche  believed  they 
were  struck  under  his  own  eye  at  a  single  royal  mint  in  his 
capital  at  Metz.2  They  represent  at  any  rate  a  centralization 
in  the  matter  of  the  currency  that  was  entirely  Roman,  and 
that  contrasts  markedly  with  the  state  of  affairs  which  pre- 
vailed under  his  successors  of  the  Merovingian  house. 

It  is  well  known  that  among  the  Franks  in  VII  the  royal 
authority  suffered  eclipse,  and  its  weakness  is  reflected  in  the 
numismatic  history  of  the  period.     The  issue  of  the  large  and 

1  Keary,  '  Coinages  of  Western  Europe,'  in  Numismatic  Chronicle,  N.S., 
xvm  and  xix. 

2  Revue  Numismatique,  1 889  ;  see  however  Prou,  Catalogue  des  Monnaies 
Francoises  de  la  Bibliotheque  Nationale,  Les  Monnaies  Mdrovingiennes,  Paris, 
1892,  Introduction,  Ch.  3. 


MEROVINGIAN  TRIENTES  63 

handsome  aurei  practically  ceased,  and  the  fractional  piece,  the 
gold  triens,  or  third  of  the  solidus,  already  issued  by  the 
earlier  kings,  became  the  characteristic  Merovingian  coin.1 
The  Frankish  triens  of  VI  and  VII  became  the  parent  of  the 
earliest  "Anglo-Saxon  coin,  the  above-mentioned  sceat,  but 
between  the  trientes  and  the  sceattas  there  exist  differences 
that  are  for  the  purpose  in  view  of  the  utmost  importance. 

The  first  difference  is  that  the  sceattas  are  of  silver  while 
the  Merovingian  triental  currency  was  one  of  gold.  To  dis- 
cuss the  reason  of  this  would  involve  too  long  a  digression, 
and  it  is  only  necessary  to  note  the  fact. 

Another  striking  difference  resides  in  the  fact  that  the 
Frankish  trientes  are  lavishly  inscribed  while  on  the  sceattas 
lettering  is  infrequent.  Unlike  the  earlier  Roman  coins 
however  the  trientes  very  rarely  bear  the  name  of  a  sovereign. 
The  legend  in  nearly  every  case  contains  the  indication  of  a 
place  of  origin  and  of  the  name  of  the  moneyer  who  struck 
the  coin.  These  places  and  names  are  extraordinarily  numer- 
ous. M.  Babelon2  reckons  the  number  of  the  former  at 
nearly  a  thousand,  that  of  the  moneyers  at  fourteen  or  fifteen 
hundred,  and  the  question  has  naturally  arisen  in  what 
circumstances  and  under  what  authority  the  trientes  were 
struck.  Into  this  discussion  it  is  not  necessary  to  enter.  The 
practical  disappearance  of  the  royal  designation  is  not  easy  to 
explain,  and  it  is  held  by  some  authorities,  such  as  M.  Babelon 
and  M.  Prou,3  that  the  issue  of  the  trientes  was  in  private 
hands,  and  that  the  moneyers  would  coin  their  own  gold,  and 
that  brought  to  them  by  clients,  without  the  active  supervision 
of  any  central  authority.4 

1  '  Les  triens  ou  tiers  de  sou  constituaient  le  numeraire  courant  a  l'epoque 
me"rovingienne,'  Prou,  I.e.,  p.  lxii. 

2  La  Theorie  Feodale  de  la  Monnaie,  Paris,  1908,  p.  8. 

3  Catalogue,  etc.,  Les  Monnaies  Carolingiennes,  Paris,  1896,  p.  xlvi. 

4  For  another  theory,  that  explains  on  an  attractive  hypothesis  the  same 
curious  phenomena,  see  Engel  &  Serrure,  Trait'e  de  Numismatique  du  Moyeu 
Age,  1,  86  f. 


64  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

To  what  extent  the  economic  conditions  of  sceat  production 
in  Britain  resembled  or  differed  from  those  that  obtained  in 
Gaul  is  uncertain,  but  we  do  find  upon  the  former  occasionally 
the  royal  name,  while  names  of  moneyers  and  of  places,  with 
the  exception  of  one  locality,  are  hardly  known.  The  North- 
umbrian stycas,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  resemble  and  carry  on 
the  tradition  of  the  sceattas,  were  certainly  issued  by  royal 
authority,  and  the  names  of  numerous  kings  appear  upon 
them,  with  several  moneyers,  but  no  names  of  places.  On 
the  whole  there  is  no  ground  for  believing  that  the  peculiar 
conditions  under  which  the  trientes  must  have  been  struck 
prevailed  also  on  this  side  of  the  Channel,  though  the  actual 
part  played  by  the  royal  authority  in  the  production  of  sceattas 
and  the  centres  of  their  fabrication  are  only  very  slightly 
known  to  us. 

The  remarkable  number  of  Merovingian  mints  and 
moneyers,  however  we  may  account  for  it,  is  of  great  significance 
when  we  come  to  the  question  of  designs.  The  third  point 
of  difference  between  the  trientes  and  the  sceattas  concerns 
their  designs.  The  multiplicity  just  noticed  might  have  been 
expected  to  result  in  a  similar  variety  of  types,  but  this  is  not 
the  case.  The  designs  on  the  gold  trientes,  though  sometimes 
of  much  interest,  are  wanting  in  the  variety  and  inventiveness 
that  are  so  characteristic  of  the  sceat  types.  The  obverse  of 
the  Merovingian  coins,  inherited  from  the  earlier  Roman 
trientes,  is  almost  always  a  profile  bust,  though  the  full  face 
also  occurs,  and  occasionally  other  devices.  The  reverse 
types  are  naturally  more  varied,  and  in  most  cases  can  be 
referred  to  Roman  originals.  The  earliest  in  point  of  time  is 
the  figure  of  a  Victory  but  from  about  600  this  is  replaced  by 
the  cross,  which  in  the  words  of  M.  Prou1  '  constitue  le  type 
du  revers  de  la  plupart  des  monnaies  emises  en  Gaule  depuis 
la  fin  du  VIe  siecle  jusqu'au  milieu  du  VIIIe  siecle.'  This 
cross  appears  in  diverse  forms  and  the  variations  may  stand  to 

1  Les  Monnaies  Merovingiennes,  p.  lxxxvi. 


MEROVINGIAN  AND  GALLO-BRITISH  PIECES 


Enlarged  less  than  i^  diameters 


CELTIC  AND  FRANKISH  COIN  TYPES  65 

the  credit  of  the  Gallic  designers.  It  occurs  on  a  globe,  on 
steps,  in  a  Latin  shape  or  a  Greek,  with  pendants  from  the 
extremities  of  its  arms,  and  with  these  *  gammees,'  '  potencees,' 
1  ancrees,'  or  treated  in  some  other  of  the  decorative  fashions 
distinguished  by  heraldic  terms,  that  are  said  to  number 
several  score.  It  always  however  remains  the  cross,  and  this 
fact  suggests  a  remark  on  the  general  subject  of  the  treatment 
by  the  barbarian  artist  of  ornamental  motives  derived  from 
classical  sources. 

The  illustrations  on  PL  11  comprise,  first.  No.  1,  a  fine 
gold  coin  of  the  solidus  class  that  is  a  very  careful  reproduction 
by  a  Gallic  moneyer  of  Marseilles  of  an  aureus  of  the  Emperor 
Maurice  Tiberius,  582-602  a.d.  ;  second,  a  number  of  Mero- 
vingian trientes,  generally  in  gold  but  in  the  case  of  certain 
later  issues  in  silver,  which  give  a  fair  idea  of  triental  types, 
while  there  are  added  below  for  purposes  of  comparison  a  few 
examples  of  the  interesting  and  well-known  Gallo-British  coins 
of  pre-Roman  times  that  show  the  treatment  by  the  Celtic 
moneyer  of  classical  types  introduced  into  Gaul  from  Greece. 
With  this  plate  should  be  compared  those  which  follow, 
PH.  iv  to  viii,  on  which  are  numerous  representations  of 
sceat  types  from  various  collections  at  home  and  in  Holland.1 

A  glance  at  the  material  thus  presented  will  show  that 
practically  every  device  is  a  degradation  of  some  classical  type 
or  of  the  representation  of  some  animal  or  object  in  nature. 
The  monogram  types  such  as  those  in  PI.  11,  Nos.  11,  15',  or 
devices  like  Nos.  10,  13,  on  PI.  11,  and  Nos.  14  to  17  on  PI.  vi 
(p.  85),  are  exceptional.    In  the  case  of  the  Celtic  pieces  the 

1  In  the  interests  of  the  general  reader  the  coins  have  been  reproduced 
on  an  enlarged  scale.  The  sceattas  and  the  trientes  are  minute  coins,  not 
more  than  three-quarters  the  size  of  a  threepenny  piece,  and  the  designs 
can  only  be  appreciated  on  the  scale  of  the  original  by  a  reader  who  is  either 
a  practised  numismatist  or  takes  the  pains  to  look  very  closely.  Even  numis- 
matists now  sometimes  reproduce  these  little  pieces  double  their  natural  size. 
On  the  plates  which  follow  the  enlargement  varies  from  one  and  a  half  to 
two  diameters. 

Ill  E 


66  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

prototype  is  the  noble  Hellenic  coins,  the  '  regale  nomisma 
Philippos '  of  Horace,1  which  formed  a  sort  of  international 
currency  under  the  Macedonian  hegemony  of  Greece,  and  was 
freely  introduced  through  central  Europe  or  through  Massilia 
and  other  Greek  colonies  into  Gaul  and  Britain.  Upon  the 
trientes  and  the  sceattas  the  obverse  type  generally  reproduces 
in  a  more  or  less  barbarized  semblance  the  full  face  or  profile 
imperial  bust  or  head,  while  reverses  like  the  Victories  of 
PI.  ii,  8,  PI.  iv,  13,  the  crosses,  and  numerous  others,  go  back 
also  to  Roman  prototypes,  though  there  are  very  many  devices 
especially  among  the  sceattas  for  which  no  Roman  original  can 
be  produced.  The  treatment  of  these  classical  prototypes 
varies  in  the  three  classes  of  coins  under  review.  The  Celtic 
start  with  the  best  example  but  not  only  reproduce  it  in 
degraded  fashion  but  modify  it  altogether  out  of  existence  as 
an  intelligible  representation,  reducing  it  to  a  meaningless 
jumble  of  irregular  marks.  In  juxtaposition  with  the  Greek 
originals,  PI.  11,  16,  are  placed  the  obverse  and  reverse  of  two 
Celtic  coins,  PI.  11,  17,  which  show  this  degradation  carried  to 
extremest  limits.  The  intermediate  stages,  Nos.  18  to  20, 
show  what  has  happened.  The  face  of  the  obverse  No.  17  has 
preserved  reminiscences  of  the  wreath  and  some  of  the  front 
curls,  though  the  features,  still  recognizable  in  No.  20,  have  in 
No.  1 8  already  disappeared.  On  the  reverses,  in  the  wreck  of 
the  representation  as  a  whole,  the  single  horse  of  No.  18' 
preserves  his  anatomy  and  the  use  of  his  limbs  but  in  No.  19 
he  has  stiffened  to  lifelessness  and  in  No.  17  he  has  disappeared 
leaving  only  recognizable  by  the  aid  of  No.  1 9  two  legs,  and 
by  that  of  No.  1 8'  the  detached  wheel  of  the  original  chariot. 

In  the  case  of  the  trientes  and  the  sceattas  this  solution  of 
a  type  into  a  mere  congeries  of  disjecta  membra  does  not 
occur.  In  the  trientes  the  head,  the  cross,  the  bird,  always 
retain  their  form,  though  reduced  to  such  shapes  as  Nos.  4,  12' 
on  PI.  11.     The  same  may  be  said  of  the  sceattas,  but  they 

1  Epist.,  11,  i.  232. 


<  DEGRADATION '  IN  ORNAMENT  67 

possess  a  characteristic  in  which  their  artistic  superiority  over 
the  trientes  comes  into  prominence.  The  designers  of  the 
sceat  types  possessed  the  power,  which  is  not  in  evidence  across 
the  Channel,  of  constituting  new  types  out  of  the  wrecks  of 
older  representations,  and  a  word  may  here  be  in  place  about 
the  meaning  of  the  term  so  often  used  in  the  present  connection 
— 'degradation.'  The  word  carries  with  it  a  certain  ethical 
suggestion  which  in  matters  of  art  is  out  of  place.  Just  as  it 
is  a  mistake  to  demand  on  ethical  grounds  prosaic  truthfulness 
in  the  works  of  the  formative  art,  so  in  ornamental  design  we 
are  wrong  to  complain  of  a  so-termed  c  degraded  '  motive  on 
the  ground  that  it  is  lacking  in  exact  correspondence  with  its 
prototype.  The  question  is  not  whether  it  keeps  true  to  the 
original  form  that  happened  to  be  its  starting  point,  but  whether 
the  resultant  shape  appears  a  consistent  unity  with  some  feeling 
of  structure  and  is  disposed  with  decorative  tact  in  the  space  it 
adorns.  This  structure  need  not  be  organically  possible  from 
the  point  of  view  of  physiology  or  botany.  The  Greek 
Centaur  is  not  anatomically  justifiable  but  is  a  consistent  and 
even  convincing  creation  of  the  highest  artistic  value.  Hence 
the  term  '  degradation '  is  used  here  in  a  purely  technical  sense 
without  any  depreciatory  suggestion.  We  shall  be  able  to 
follow  the  life  history  of  several  sceat  types  and  see  that  each 
changes  not  only  by  the  loss  of  features  of  the  original,  or  by 
an  arbitrary  shifting  of  these,  but  by  the  perpetual  creation  of 
new  devices  that  may  have  the  very  slightest  resemblance  to 
the  original  type  but  possess  in  themselves  independence 
and  artistic  value.  In  other  words  there  is  a  certain  activity 
in  creation  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  designer  that  is  lacking  in  his 
more  prosaic  predecessor  and  contemporary  among  the  Franks. 
He  is  not  so  good  a  copyist  as  the  latter,  and  the  sceattas  do 
not  show  such  well-modelled  heads  as  those  in  PI.  11,  2,  3, 
nor,  except  very  rarely,  such  neat  execution  as  on  their  reverses, 
but  in  point  of  fancy  and  of  artistic  composition  he  is 
immeasurably  the  superior  designer. 


68  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

We  return  here  to  what  is  after  all,  from  the  present  point 
of  view,  the  most  important  difference  between  the  sceattas 
and  the  trientes,  the  far  greater  variety  and  interest  in  the 
types  which  the  former  exhibit.  As  we  shall  see  in  examining 
the  sceattas  there  is  a  large  field  of  design,  well  within  the  com- 
pass of  Teutonic  artistic  powers,  into  which  the  Merovingian 
moneyer  does  not  trouble  himself  to  enter,  but  in  which 
the  insular  artist  revels  with  the  most  delightful  freedom. 
This  is  the  field  of  animal  design.  There  are  animals  on 
Roman  coins  that  furnish  starting  points,  and  either  from 
these  or  from  his  own  imagination  the  Anglo-Saxon  designer 
has  evolved  a  whole  menagerie  of  quaint  and  often  pleasing 
shapes  that  are  without  parallel  in  numismatic  history,  of 
course  putting  out  of  account  the  incomparable  '  Thierwelt ' 
of  the  Greek  coin  designer.  In  France  there  are  two  delight- 
ful reverses  among  the  gold  trientes  of  Cahors  in  M.  Prou's 
catalogue,  given  in  Nos.  6,  7,  of  PI.  11,  and  these  birds  pecking 
at  grapes  will  meet  us  again  on  the  sceattas.  There  are  one 
or  two  other  birds  in  triental  designs,  but  the  quadrupeds  and 
other  wingless  creatures  that  riot  on  the  sceattas  are  only 
represented  in  France  by  PI.  11,  14'  and  a  pair  of  others,  so 
that  in  his  discussion  of  types  M.  Prou  only  says  'a  Neaufles 
(see  No.  14)  et  a  Nantes,  nous  trouvons  un  quadrupede  ;  a 
Loci  Velacorum,  une  tete  de  loup.'1 

It  was  noticed  above  that  the  Anglo-Saxons  had  an  early 
currency  in  gold  though  they  settled  down  in  the  sceat  period 
to  silver.  The  British  Museum  possesses  one  exceptional 
piece,  given,  enlarged  to  nearly  two  diameters,  in  No.  1  on 
PI.  in,  in  the  form  of  a  gold  solidus  with  types  imitated  from 
those  of  a  coin  of  Honorius,  that  bears  a  runic  inscription 
which  from  the  form  of  one  of  the  characters  locates  the  coin 
either  in  this  country  or  in  Frisia.  When  the  British  Museum 
catalogue  was  drawn  up  about  1887,  Dr.  Wimmer  dated  the 
piece  on  the  evidence  of  the  runes  about  600,  but  quite 
1  Les  Monnaies,  p.  xcv. 


Ill 

facing  p.  69 


THE  CRONDALL  HOARD,  ETC. 


No.  1,  enlarged  1^  diameters;  the  other  coins  about  2  diameters.     The  coins  are  gold 


THE  CRONDALL  HOARD  69 

recently  Professor  von  Friesen  of  Upsala  has  given  an 
authoritative  opinion  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  the 
runes  that  would  prevent  its  origin  being  put  back  for  another 
century.  Its  provenance  is  not  exactly  known  but  it  '  is 
believed  to  have  been  found  in  this  country,' '  though,  as  was 
said  above,  it  might  conceivably  be  of  Frisian  origin,  for  it  is 
now  recognized  that  the  Frisians  employed  the  runic  characters 
which  used  to  be  claimed  as  exclusively  British.  If  we  may 
regard  it  as  of  English  provenance  it  becomes  a  document  of  the 
utmost  importance  in  its  bearing  on  the  history  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  coinage.  The  inscription  is  blundered  and  unintelligible, 
but  the  representation  of  the  profile  head  and  of  the  figure 
treading  down  an  opponent  on  the  reverse  compare  favourably 
in  point  of  art  with  the  famous  Theodebert  coins  of  about  540 
shown  PI.  1,  4,  5,  and  even  with  the  excellent  Massiliote  copy 
of  the  aureus  PL  11,  1.  The  Roman  prototype  would  date 
from  about  the  first  decade  of  V  and  this  copy  so  far  as  the 
runic  inscription  is  concerned  may  have  been  made  not  much 
more  than  a  century  later.  The  piece  may  of  course  have 
been  fashioned  as  an  ornament  rather  than  a  unit  of  a  regular 
currency,  but  it  is  not  pierced  for  suspension.  There  is  no 
doubt  however  that  gold  coins  proper  were  minted  in  England 
in  VII  if  not  in  VI,  and  the  proof  of  this  is  the  well-known 
Crondall  hoard. 

In  the  year  1828  a  labourer  cutting  turf  on  what  was  a 
portion  of  Bagshott  Heath,  near  Crondall  in  Hants  not  far 
from  Farnham,  disclosed  under  a  sod  he  had  raised  some 
glittering  objects.  These  proved  to  be  one  hundred  small 
gold  coins  together  with  three  '  blanks '  or  '  flans,'  that  is  plain 
discs  of  gold  punched  out  of  a  plate  and  ready  to  receive  the 
impress  from  the  dies,  and  two  characteristic  Anglo-Saxon 
jewelled  objects  of  gold  inlaid  with  garnets  attached  to 
delicately  wrought  chains,  that  may  have  served  as  the 
fastenings  of  a  pouch  or  purse.     A  word  is    necessary  on 

1  British  Museum  Catalogue,  1,  i. 


70  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

these  adjuncts  of  the  find  as  they  are  of  some  significance. 
The  jewelled  objects,  shown  with  two  *  blanks'  PL  in,  2,1 
exhibit  in  design  and  technique  a  marked  similarity  with 
fibulae,  pendants,  and  buckles,  that  occur  in  the  more  richly 
furnished  Anglo-Saxon  graves  of  about  VII.  This  conjunction 
bears  upon  the  question  of  the  date  of  the  hoard  and  will  be 
returned  to  later.  Another  point  of  importance  is  the  sur- 
mise which  the  conjunction  suggests  that  goldsmith  and 
moneyer  were  one  person.  The  presence  of  the  '  blanks  '  seems 
to  show  that  the  owner,  and  loser,  of  the  hoard  was  a  moneyer. 
There  is  no  proof  that  he  was  also  the  fabricant  of  the  jewelled 
fastenings,  but  it  seems  at  first  sight  unlikely  that  a  person  in 
his  position  would  possess  choice  *  objets  de  luxe*  of  the  kind 
unless  he  had  made  them  for  sale.  There  is  however  an 
exhibit  in  the  museum  at  Leeuwarden  in  Friesland  that 
suggests  another  explanation.  This  region  it  will  be  seen  is 
of  special  importance  in  connection  with  sceat  study,  and  a 
reference  to  it  is  quite  to  the  point. 

At  the  present  moment  no  hunting-ground  offers  more 
attractions  to  the  student  of  early  mediaeval  antiquities  than 
the  Frisian  'Terpen.'  These  are  artificial  mounds  of  no  great 
height  but  of  considerable  area,  common  in  Friesland  where 
some  four  hundred  are  known  2  and  occurring  also  in  the  pro- 
vince of  Groningen,  which  served  as  platforms  to  keep  houses 
and  villages  above  the  level  of  the  floods.  Since  XIX  many 
of  these  mounds  have  been  wholly  or  partially  levelled  on 
account  of  the  value  as  manure  of  the  material  of  which  they 
are  composed.  This  material  is  earth  containing  animal  and 
vegetable  remains  in  successive  strata,  thickly  sown  with  the 
relics  of  human  occupation  that  provide  archaeological  treasures 
dating  from  pre-Roman  times  to  our  own.  The  museum  at 
Leeuwarden   contains   objects   from    more   than   a    hundred 

1  The  coins  and  other  objects  are  in  the  collection  of  Lord  Grantley, 
who  has  kindly  permitted  the  writer  to  take  some  photographs  of  them. 

2  Boeles,  De  Friescbe  Terpen,  Leeuwarden,  1906. 


WERE  MONEYERS  GOLDSMITHS?  71 

terpen.  The  cutting  down  of  these  mounds  is  now  carefully 
watched  on  behalf  of  the  Frisian  Society  for  History  and 
Antiquities,  and  No.  3  on  PI.  in  gives  a  view  of  one  in  pro- 
cess of  being  partially  removed.  The  church  on  the  summit 
dates  back  to  about  XII.  In  a  terp  at  Dronrijp  near  Leeu- 
warden  there  came  to  light  in  1876  a  small  find  of  gold 
objects,1  including  (1)  an  ingot  of  gold  about  three  inches  long 
and  three-eighths  of  an  inch  thick,  (2)  thirty  little  bean-shaped 
trientes  with  imitations  of  Merovingian  types,  (3)  a  couple  of 
blanks  apparently  partly  struck  and  suitable  for  similar  coins, 
and  (4)  in  a  crumpled  condition  the  broken-up  goldwork  of 
a  buckle  closely  resembling  a  well-preserved  buckle  from  a 
similar  terp  at  Wieuwerd,  also  near  Leeuwarden,  now  in  the 
museum  at  Leiden.  Some  of  these  Dronrijp  objects  are 
shown  PI.  in,  4.  Both  finds  can  be  dated  VII.  The  Dron- 
rijp find  is  evidence  that  the  moneyer  might  obtain  his  metal 
by  breaking  up  and  melting  down  disused  gold  ornaments, 
but  is  no  proof  that  he  manufactured  them.  The  Crondall 
gold  trinkets  may  in  the  same  way  have  been  merely  prospec- 
tive material  for  the  mint.  In  the  nature  of  things,  it  is  true, 
it  would  be  probable  that  those  who  struck  coins  in  the 
precious  metals  also  worked  these  same  materials  for  other 
purposes.  In  early  mediaeval  days  technical  processes  were  not 
so  specialized  as  has  been  the  case  in  more  modern  times,  and 
the  worker  in  a  particular  material  would  manipulate  it  to  all 
the  recognized  ends  for  which  it  was  employed.  In  the  Life 
of  St.  Eloi,  the  famous  ecclesiastical  craftsman  of  Merovingian 
days,  we  learn  that  he  acquired  the  art  of  fine  work  in  gold 
from  Abbon,  who  exercised  at  Limoges  the  public  function  of 
a  moneyer,2  and  St.  Eloi  himself  is  most  likely  the  '  Eligius  ' 

1  J.  Dirks  in  Tie  Vrije  Fries,  Deel  xvn,  Leeuwarden,  1887,  published  the 
find.  See  also  the  Catalogue  of  the  Frisian  Museum  at  Leeuwarden,  by 
Mr.  Boeles,  1909,  p.  70. 

2  .  .  .  'pater  tradidit  eum  ad  imbuendum  honorabili  viro,  Abboni  voca- 
bulo,  fabro  aurifici  probatissimo,  qui  eo  tempore  in  urbe  Lemovicina  publicam 
fiscalis  monetae  officinam  gerebat,'  Audoenus,  Vita  S.  Eligii,  1,  3. 


72  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

who  signs  as  moneyer  the  coins  of  Dagobert  i  and  other 
sovereigns  of  the  time.  On  this  hypothesis  it  will  be  inter- 
esting to  compare  the  workmanship  and  designs  on  Anglo- 
Saxon  coins  with  those  of  the  gold  ornaments  which  would 
proceed  from  the  same  source,  and  it  may  be  said  at  the 
outset  that  in  these  respects  there  is  very  little  resemblance 
between  the  coins  and  the  tomb  furniture.  In  the  matter  of 
the  rendering  of  animal  forms,  to  take  one  point  only,  the 
coin  designer  is  far  ahead  of  the  goldsmith,  who  is  satisfied  to 
adorn  a  magnificent  piece  like  the  Kingston  brooch  (see 
frontispiece)  with  shapes  that  not  only  as  animal  representa- 
tions exhibit  degradation  in  its  extremist  form  but  have  no 
quaintness  or  interest  in  themselves.  The  relations  between 
the  coin  designs  and  those  on  other  objects  of  the  same  period 
must  be  dealt  with  later  on  at  more  length,  but  here  it  is  suffi- 
cient to  say  that  the  evidence  of  these  designs  taken  alone 
would  not  bear  out  the  orthodox  view  that  moneyer  and  gold- 
smith were  one  and  the  same  person. 

The  owner  of  the  Crondall  hoard  was  therefore  certainly  a 
moneyer  and,  very  problematically,  also  a  goldsmith,  and  was 
dealing  with  and  striking  coins  for  use  in  this  country.  The 
pieces  are  of  different  dates  and  kinds.  Some  are  Merovingian 
trientes  struck  abroad  and  imported  to  this  country  while 
others  are  of  insular  origin.  These  again  are  of  two  kinds, 
some  being  obviously  imitations  of  trientes  in  the  same 
material  gold,  while  a  few  specimens  show  types  which  do  not 
appear  on  the  trientes  and  seem  to  have  been  copied  directly 
from  Roman  originals.  If  the  insular  pieces  were  all  of  early 
date  the  Crondall  hoard  might  be  used  as  evidence  of  a  gold 
currency  preceding  the  silver,  but  this  is  not  the  case.  There 
may  be  instanced  the  remarkable  coin  given  PI.  in,  5.1  This 
is  shown  by  the  inscription  LONDUNI(U)  to  be  a  product 
of  the  London  mint,  and  it  would  seem  to  follow  from  the 
appearance  on  the  same  side  of  the  cross  that  it  is  subsequent 

1  British  Museum  Catalogue,  1,  xiv. 


AN  ECCLESIASTICAL  TYPE  73 

to  the  conversion  of  south-eastern  England  about  600.  It 
may  be  said  here  at  once  that  the  mere  use  of  the  cross  as  part 
of  an  early  Saxon  coin  device  need  not  necessarily  prove  that 
the  piece  is  of  the  Christian  period.  The  Franks  were 
Christians  long  before  the  Anglo-Saxons,  and  a  Christian 
symbol  may  often  have  been  copied  as  a  mere  device  by  a 
pagan  Saxon  from  an  object  wrought  by  a  Christian  workman 
of  Gaul.  It  is  to  be  noted  however  that  in  the  special  case  of 
coin  devices  the  cross  did  not  come  into  vogue  in  Gaul  till 
rather  late.  Mr.  Keary  said  not  '  until  nearly  the  end  of  the 
sixth  century,'  and  M.  Prou1  is  in  agreement  with  this.  Of 
the  piece  now  under  notice,  PI.  in,  5,  the  ecclesiastical  character 
is  evident,  and  it  is  of  insular  origin.  On  the  obverse  is  a 
rudely  delineated  full  face  apparently  of  a  priest  with  a  half- 
circle  round  his  neck  terminating  in  crosses.  This  was 
interpreted  in  the  notice  publishing  the  coins  in  the  Numis- 
matic Chronicle 2  as  a  stole,  but  this  is  very  improbable,  for  the 
ends  of  a  stole  as  normally  worn  hang  far  away  down  by  the 
feet,  and  there  is  the  further  difficulty  that  if  it  were  a  stole 
it  would  be  by  far  the  earliest  known  representation  of  this 
vestment,  which  Father  Braun  cannot  trace  further  back  in 
art  than  the  altar  front  at  Cividale  of  King  Rachis,  744~749.3 
It  is  surely  much  more  likely  to  be  the  pall,  the  importance  of 
which  at  the  period  is  obvious  from  the  correspondence  of 
Roman  bishops  reported  by  Bede.  Early  palls,  as  for  in- 
stance in  the  VI  mosaic  picture  of  Justinian  and  his  retinue  in 
S.  Vitale,  Ravenna,4  are  thrown  round  the  neck  and  have  the 
cross  conspicuous  on  the  ends  as  on  the  coin.  Now  if  struck 
in   London   with    ecclesiastical    significance    the   piece    might 

1  Les  Monnaies,  p.  lxxxv  f. 

2  N.S.,x,  174. 

3  Dr.  Joseph  Braun,  S.J.,  Die  Liturgische  Gezvandung,  Freiburg  i.  B.,  1907, 

P-  577- 

4  The  upper  part  of  the  figures  of  ecclesiastics  on  the  right  of  the  Emperor 
are  original.  The  lower  portions,  in  which  the  ends  of  a  long  stole  appear, 
are  now  recognized  to  be  restorations  of  XII.     J.  Braun,  I.e.,  p.  576. 


74  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

conceivably  be  the  work  of  Mellitus  during  his  tenure  of  the 
see,  604-c.  617,  and  the  head  that  of  an  archbishop,  either 
Augustine  or  Laurentius.  The  next  effective  bishop  of 
London  was  Earconuald,  consecrated  675,  and  if  he  put  on 
his  coin  the  head  of  the  contemporary  archbishop  who  con- 
secrated him  this  would  be  the  head  of  Theodore. 

A  much  better  wrought  head  in  profile  occurs  on  an 
interesting  gold  piece,  No.  6,  like  the  rest  on  PI.  in  in  the 
Grantley  collection,  that  was  once  in  the  Advocates'  Library, 
Edinburgh.  This  bears  on  the  reverse  the  legible  inscription 
WITMEN  MONITA.  The  same  obverse  with  the  head 
degenerate,  and  the  same  reverse  with  the  inscription 
blundered,  are  seen  on  the  Crondall  piece,  No.  7,  and  as  this 
type  in  various  modifications  occurs  twenty-one  times  among 
the  Crondall  coins  while  another  example  was  found  near 
Canterbury  in  1844,  they  are  accepted  as  Anglo-Saxon.1  The 
heads  which  have  a  curiously  shaped  object  in  front  of  them 
are  connected  in  general  appearance  and  by  this  feature  with 
a  ruder  example  in  gold,  No.  8,  the  reverse  of  which  bears  an 
inscription  that  has  been  brought  into  connection  with  Win- 
chester (Winton).  Here  the  inscription  is  not  so  clear  as  in 
the  British  Museum  example,  figured,  Catalogue,  PI.  1,  3. 

We  find  accordingly  on  the  Crondall  gold  coins  and  their 
affinities  indications  of  two  English  mints  and  the  name  of  a 
moneyer,  characteristics  that  connect  the  issues  with  the  trientes 
while  they  at  the  same  time  vindicate  them  as  of  insular  origin. 
In  style  no  doubt  these  pieces  are  transitional  between  the 
trientes  and  the  sceattas,  but  they  are  by  no  means  necessarily 
so  in  time.  There  may  be  really  early  English  pieces  in  the 
Crondall  find  and  among  other  examples  in  gold,  but  those 
that  have  been  noticed  seem  to  proclaim  by  the  appearance  of 
the  cross  that  they  are  of  VII  origin.2  The  question  now  to 
be  asked  is :    What  is  the  probable  date  of  the  earliest  silver 

1  Vte  de  Ponton  d'Amecourt  in  Num.  Chron.,  N.S.,  xn,  80. 

2  The  caution  given  on  the  last  page  may  however  be  borne  in  mind. 


DATE  OF  THE  FIRST  SCEATTAS  75 

sceattas,  and  how  do  they  compare  in  point  of  time  with  these 
gold  pieces  ? 

There  seems  now  to  be  no  reason  to  doubt  that  real  coins 
intended  for  circulation  were  issued  from  Anglo-Saxon  mints 
in  the  course  of  VI.  The  old  view  that  we  cannot  have 
possessed  a  coinage  before  the  advent  of  Augustine,  or  at 
least  the  marriage  of  iEthelberht  of  Kent  with  the  Frankish 
Princess  Berchta,  has  now  been  seriously  impugned,1  and  we 
are  enabled  in  this  way  to  accord  a  natural  meaning  to  an 
important  ancient  document  which  has  been  subjected  to  a 
rather  forced  interpretation.  In  the  Laws  of  iEthelberht  of 
Kent,  issued  after  his  conversion,  the  amounts  of  fines  payable 
in  connection  with  various  offences  are  reckoned  in  '  shillings ' 
and  '  sceattas.'  These  terms  have  been  held  to  represent 
mere  '  money  of  account,'  that  is  to  express  values  but  not  to 
imply  the  existence  of  actual  coins.  It  has  been  suggested 
more  recently  however  that  *  shilling '  may  have  meant  a  real 
solidus  of  gold  and  not  merely  its  value,  while  Professor 
Chad  wick  in  his  recent  discussion  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  monetary 
system  states  that '  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  in  iEthelberht's 
Laws  at  all  events  sceatt  is  used  to  denote  a  silver  coin,  in  all 
probability  coins  of  the  small  and  comparatively  thick  type  to 
which  the  name  has  been  applied  by  numismatists.' 2  If  the 
silver  sceattas  were  being  coined  VI  while  many  at  any  rate 
of  the  gold  pieces  just  noticed  were  VII  productions,  a  gold 
coinage  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  preceded  in  England  a 
silver  one,  though  the  gold  coins  may  be  nearer  the  ultimate 
prototype  of  all  our  earliest  coins,  the  Frankish  trientes. 

The  study  of  the  sceattas,  in  any  case  difficult  owing  to 
their  anonymous  character,  is  complicated  by  the  fact  that 
they  are  not  only  found  in  our  own  country  but  also  in 
considerable  numbers  in  what  is  now  Holland.     In  England, 

1  H.  M.  Chadwick,  Studies  in  Anglo-Saxon  Institutions,  Cambridge,  1905, 
p.  60. 

2  I.e.,  p.  8. 


76  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

so  far  as  the  provenance  of  specimens  is  known,  the  currency 
in  question  belonged  to  the  southern  and  eastern  parts  of  the 
country,  extending  into  the  Mercian  midlands  and  penetrat- 
ing into  Northumbria,  where  it  was  superseded  by  the 
so-called  '  styca '  series.  The  facts  about  the  discovery  of 
sceattas  in  Holland  have  some  significance.1  Three  localities 
have  furnished  them.  One  is  the  ancient  Frisia,  where  on 
three  sites  compact  hoards  of  sceattas  and  sceattas  alone  have 
come  to  light.  In  1863  at  Terwispel,  a  commune  of  Opster- 
land  in  Friesland,  161  sceattas  all  of  one  single  type  were 
found  accompanied  by  an  ingot  of  silver,  one  or  two  flat 
pieces,  and  the  silver  mount  of  a  jewel.  At  Hallum,  north 
of  Leeuwarden,  in  1866,  250  coins,  seven-ninths  of  which 
were  of  one  type,  were  found  in  an  urn  and  had  all  evidently 
been  freshly  minted.  At  Franeker,  two  years  later,  410 
pieces  also  just  fresh  from  the  dies,  and  to  the  extent  of 
seven-eighths  all  of  one  type,  were  discovered  lying  together 
as  if  they  had  been  contained  in  some  receptacle.  The  circum- 
stances of  these  finds,  the  freshness  of  the  pieces,  and  the  fact 
that  so  few  types  were  represented,  are  all  points  of  interest. 

The  other  two  localities  are  Wijk  bij  Duurstede,  on  a 
branch  of  the  Rhine  near  Utrecht,  and  the  old  seaport  in 
Zeeland,  Domburg,  on  the  north-west  coast  of  Walcheren. 
These  were  both  localities  of  commercial  importance  and  the 
sceattas  found  there  were  accompanied  by  earlier  Roman,  by 
Frankish,  and  by  later  Carolingian  pieces.  At  Duurstede  the 
finds  have  been  sporadic.  At  Domburg,2  where  the  sea  has 
encroached  upon  the  land,  there  existed  a  large  ancient  ceme- 
tery long  ago  submerged,  and  objects  washed  from  the  wooden 
coffins,  that  seem  to  have  been  in  habitual  use,  have  come  to 

1  J.  Dirks,  'De  Angel-Sakscn  en  hunne  oudste  Munten  (sceattas),'  in 
De  Vrije  Fries,  xn,  Leeuwarden,  1872. 

2  Mejuffr.  Marie  de  Man,  '  Que  sait-on  de  la  plage  de  Domburg  ? '  in 
Tijdscbrift  van  bet  Nederlandscb  Genootscbap  voor  Munt-  en  Penningkunde, 
Amsterdam,  1889. 


ARE  SCEATTAS  OF  ENGLISH  ORIGIN  ?  77 

light  at  different  dates  from  XVII  to  our  own  day.  Among 
these  are  numerous  coins  Roman  and  Frankish  and  also  sceattas 
in  number  as  many  as  the  Frankish  pieces,  which  last  were  of 
the  silver  mintage  as  well  as  of  gold.  The  Domburg  coins, 
which  exhibit  great  variety  in  types,  are  chiefly  to  be  studied 
in  the  collection  of  Mejuffr.  de  Man  at  Middelburg  and  in 
the  Museum  there  of  the  Zeeland  Society,  while  the  compact 
hoards  found  in  Friesland  may  be  seen  displayed  in  the  fine 
Museum  of  the  Frisian  Society  at  Leeuwarden.  The  pieces 
discovered  at  Duurstede  are  scattered,  but  several  are  in  the 
Cabinet  at  the  Hague. 

The  question  at  once  arises  whether  the  sceattas  in  general 
are  of  British  or  continental  origin,  or  were  minted  contem- 
poraneously in  both  regions.  In  the  case  of  the  pennies  and  also 
of  the  stycas  no  doubt  as  to  their  provenance  is  possible,  for 
they  have  on  them  the  names  of  known  English  kings  and  of 
moneyers  whose  appellations  are  with  few  exceptions  Anglo- 
Saxon  in  sound  and  spelling,  while  the  accidental  fact  that  the 
pennies  have  been  found  in  great  numbers  abroad,  as  in 
Scandinavia  and  in  Rome,  is  susceptible  of  easy  explanation. 
The  sceattas  on  the  other  hand  are  mostly  anonymous  and 
the  devices  on  some  of  those  found  abroad  seem  to  suggest 
a  continental  origin  rather  than  importation  from  England. 
That  specimens  of  the  same  currency  should  be  found  on  both 
sides  of  the  North  Sea  is  not  in  itself  surprising,  for  good 
harbours  face  each  other  on  the  opposite  coasts,  and  Bede1 
tells  us  of  a  Frisian  engaged  in  buying  and  selling  in  London. 
A  close  connection  between  the  two  regions,  the  historical 
significance  of  which  will  be  discussed  later  on,  is  attested  by 
the  occurrence  in  Frisia,  though  not  elsewhere  on  the  Con- 
tinent, of  runic  characters  of  a  supposed  specifically  English 
kind,  a  fact  that  has  led  runic  scholars  of  to-day  to  make  one 
common  Anglo-Frisian  runic  province.  It  is  therefore  a 
simple   and    plausible  hypothesis  that  both   countries   minted 

1  Hist.  Ecci.,  iv,  22. 


78  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

contemporaneously  these  small  pieces  of  silver  and  that  their 
commercial  intercourse  led  to  the  adoption  of  a  large  number 
of  common  types.  Mr.  Dirks  imagined  the  owner  of  the 
Terwispel  hoard  a  trader  who  had  recently  supplied  himself 
with  a  stock  of  coins  intended  for  use  in  trading  between 
Frisia  and  Britain,  but  he  naively  confessed  his  inability  to 
determine  which  country  had  actually  supplied  the  money. 
More  recent  investigations  have  however  led  to  the  general 
conviction  that,  though  there  were  doubtless  Frisian  mints, 
yet  the  sceattas  are  essentially  an  Anglo-Saxon  product,  and  in 
the  official  catalogue 1  of  the  Frisian  Museum  all  the  finds  at 
Hallum,  Franeker,  and  Terwispel  are  grouped  under  the  single 
heading  '  In  England  gestagen  munten.  Sceattas  (omstreks 
600-760  n.  C.).'  The  find-places  of  the  English  sceattas  are 
fairly  distributed  over  the  extensive  region  in  which  they 
occur,  while  in  Holland  they  are  limited  to  one  or  two 
spots  favourably  placed  for  commerce.  The  English  coins 
again  exhibit  more  varied  types  and  on  the  whole  types  that 
are  earlier  in  morphological  development.  They  are  also 
more  interesting  artistically,  and  it  is  noteworthy  that  the  one 
particular  type  that  is  frequent  in  Holland  while  it  hardly 
makes  its  appearance  among  ourselves  is  a  conventional  device 
of  no  artistic  value.  This  is  the  so-called  '  Sigillum  Davidis,' 
a  device  of  two  interlocked  triangles,  for  a  specimen  of  which 
see  the  Frankish  silver  coin  of  triental  form  No.  13  on  PI.  11. 
This  occurs  on  Dutch  sceattas,  as  at  Hallum  and  Franeker, 
and  is  later  on  taken  up  and  perpetuated  in  the  Carolingian 
penny  series  which  everywhere  superseded  the  sceattas.  The 
device  occurred  on  an  object  in  the  famous  Gallo-  or,  rather, 
Franco-Roman  tomb  of  about  400  opened  at  Vermand  in  the 
Aisne  district  of  France  and  described  by  M.  Eck  of 
St.  Quentin,2  and  is  found  on  a  fine  Carolingian  gold  ring  in 

1  Leeuwarden,  1909,  p.  77. 

2  Les  deux    Cimetieres  gallo-romains   de    Vermand   et   de    Saint-^uentin, 
Paris,  1 89 1. 


SCEATTAS  ENGLISH  AND  DUTCH 


All  silver;  enlarged  about  2  diameters 


VALUE  OF  INSCRIBED  SCEATTAS  79 

the  museum  at  Zurich.  It  belongs  apparently  to  this  part 
of  Europe,  but  it  does  not  occur  in  Anglo-Saxon  ornamenta- 
tion on  the  tomb  furniture  and  only  in  one  or  two  instances 
on  coins,  as  on  a  sceat  that  was  a  late  addition  to  Mr.  Carlyon- 
Britton's  collection  and  on  a  penny  of  Offa  in  the  British 
Museum.  Its  occurrence  in  Holland  gives  sceat  fabrication 
a  local  habitat  in  that  country,  for  the  sceattas  found  there 
cannot  in  their  entirety  be  an  import  from  England  as  we  do 
not  seem  to  have  had  any  '  Sigillum  Davidis '  coins  to  send 
away. 

There  is  a  certain  treatment  of  the  animal  form  very 
common  in  Holland  and  comparatively  rare  in  Britain  that 
also  seems  a  product  of  Frisian  mints.  This  is  noticed  later 
on  (p.  91).  On  the  other  hand  the  occurrence  on  certain 
sceattas  of  the  name  of  London  as  a  place  of  mintage,  and  on 
certain  others  the  names  of  known  English  kings  such  as 
iEthelred  of  Mercia,  establish  without  a  question  sceat  pro- 
duction in  our  own  country,  while  the  fact  that  '  London,' 
*  -ZEthelred,'  and  other  certainly  English  coins  are  found  on 
the  Dutch  sites  shows  that  importation  from  England  did 
actually  take  place.  On  the  whole  it  will  probably  be  quite 
safe  to  postulate  England  as  the  real  home  of  the  sceat 
currency  while  at  the  same  time  we  allow  a  certain  independ- 
ence to  Holland.  In  a  letter  to  the  writer  a  few  months 
before  his  death,  Mr.  Wigersma,  the  late  custodian  of  the 
coin  cabinet  at  Leeuwarden,  expressed  his  belief  that  many 
sceattas  with  degraded  types  found  in  Holland  had  been 
manufactured  at  Duurstede.  PI.  v,  10  shows  an  extraordin- 
ary profile  head  that  is  of  Dutch  and  not  English  character. 

Illustrations  of  the  inscribed  sceattas  may  here  be  given  as 
some  of  them  are  valuable  for  dating.  This  is  the  case  with 
those  sceattas,  of  which  a  fair  number  have  been  found  both  in 
this  country  and  in  Holland,  that  bear  in  runic  characters  the 
royal  name  '  iEthelred,'  PI.  iv,  1,  2.  The  known  dates  of 
this  Mercian  king  fix  the  mintage  of  the  coins  to  the  last 


80  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

quarter  of  VII.  Other  sceattas  are  marked  with  the  runic 
letters  equivalent  to  PADA,  and  these  are  claimed  for  Peada 
son  of  the  famous  Penda  of  Mercia,  whose  date  would  be 
about  656,  see  PI.  iv,  3,  4.  There  are  other  inscriptions  in 
runic  and  in  Latin  characters  on  the  sceattas  that  cannot  be 
connected  with  known  persons  and  need  not  be  enumerated 
here,  though  the  study  of  them  possesses  much  fascination 
for  the  numismatist.  Among  the  inscribed  coins  those 
marked  with  a  form  of  the  Latin  name  for  London,  PI.  iv, 
5,  6,  7,  8,  are  some  of  the  first  in  the  sceat  series  to  which 
attention  is  naturally  directed.  These  coins  possess  the 
remarkable  technical  peculiarity  that  nominally  silver  their 
metal  is  so  debased  as  to  be  little  better  than  bronze.  The 
Hunterian  specimen,  PI.  iv,  7,  shows  this  clearly.  This 
same  characteristic  reappears  in  the  later  Northumbrian  stycas 
and  in  both  cases  it  has  been  explained  as  a  survival  of  a 
Roman  tradition.  The  Romans  of  the  later  empire  coined 
chiefly  in  gold  and  bronze,  and  the  predilection  for  bronze 
rather  than  the  silver  of  old  Teutonic  tradition  is  supposed  to 
have  lingered  in  highly  Romanized  centres  such  as  London 
and  York.  The  significance  of  this  numismatic  fact  in  con- 
nection with  the  position  of  London  in  early  Anglo-Saxon 
days  will  be  noticed  on  a  later  page  (p.  605).  The  London 
coins  cannot  as  a  whole  be  placed  very  early,  for  the  reverses 
of  the  majority  of  them  show  a  figure  that  holds  two  crosses 
in  his  hands,  PI.  iv,  5,  7,  8.  The  example  found  at  Hallum 
in  Friesland,  PI.  iv,  6,  has  a  reverse  that  presents  a  very 
'  degraded,'  and  hence  presumably  late,  form  of  its  type,  and 
can  hardly  be  an  early  coin.  This  question  of  date  is  further 
discussed  later  on  in  this  chapter  (p.  1 10). 

The  criterion  of  comparative  date  here  indicated  is  one 
on  which  reliance  is  generally  placed.  A  classical  original 
being  assumed,  it  seems  natural  to  regard  copies  which  repro- 
duce it  with  fair  completeness  as  earlier  in  date  than  those  in 
which  it  appears  in  a  very  imperfect  and  blundered  condition. 


V 

facing  p.  8 1 


THE  FULL-FACED  HEAD  81 

This  mode  of  argument  from  typology  has  been  doubtless  a 
little  overpressed,  for  it  takes  no  account  of  the  possibility  of 
variations  due  to  differences  in  skill  and  practice  among  crafts- 
men, and  to  their  location  at  places  near  or  remote  from  the 
centres  where  art  and  learning  were  at  each  epoch  chiefly 
flourishing.  It  must  also  be  remembered  that  Roman  coins 
might  come  freshly  to  light  at  any  time  and  might  be  imitated 
at  quite  a  late  period  as  well  as  at  an  early  one.  Bearing  in 
mind  these  cautions  we  may  discuss  from  this  point  of  view 
some  characteristic  sceat  types. 

There  has  already  been  shown  an  excellent  full  face  on  a 
Merovingian  triens  of  Chalon,  PL  n,  3.  One  or  two  English 
sceattas  exhibit  heads  not  very  far  below  this  standard.  The 
best  is  perhaps  one  in  Lord  Grantley's  possession  but  the 
one  reproduced  here  in  an  enlarged  form,  PL  v,  7,  from 
Mr.  Carlyon-Britton's  collection  now  dispersed,  makes  a  good 
second.  The  reverse,  it  will  be  noted,  has  a  fairly  consistent 
quadruped.  This  head  may  be  regarded  as  the  parent  of  a 
very  large  number  of  full  faces  on  the  sceattas  at  home  and  in 
Holland,  while  the  creature  on  the  reverse  may  be  adjudged, 
though  not  without  caveats,  progenitor  of  a  still  more  numer- 
ous brood  of  vertebrates.  There  is  a  form  of  the  full-faced 
head  represented  on  PI.  v,  3,  5,  in  which  we  discern  a  bearded 
countenance  somewhat  wild  of  aspect  and  with  hair  that  some- 
times starts  up  from  the  head.  There  is  so  much  distinctive 
character  here  that  attempts  have  been  made  to  see  in  it  an 
embodiment  of  the  Teutonic  conception  of  the  national 
deity  Woden.  The  moustache  is  certainly  a  barbarian  rather 
than  a  classical  feature  and  we  may  regard  the  device  as  a 
Teutonizing  in  the  bold  original  sceat  fashion  of  the  classical 
Head  of  PI.  v,  7.  The  treatment  of  the  hair  at  the  sides  of 
the  head  shows  the  connection  of  the  pieces  and  the  more  far- 
etched  derivations  may  be  set  aside.1     The  head  in  question 

1  e.g.  those  of  Mejuffr.  de  Man,  and  Mr.  Wigersma,  in  Tijdscbrift  van  het 
Ion.  Ned.  Genootschap  voor  Munt-  en  Penningkunde,  Amsterdam,  1903  and  1907. 
Ill  F 


82  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

is  a  stage  in  the  evolution  of  a  degraded  type  that  occurs  with 
great  frequency  in  Holland,  PI.  v,  9.  Almost  all  these  vary- 
ing full-faced  heads  have  reverses  that  are  similarly  related 
and  that  in  Holland  consist  in  a  spidery-looking  creature  of 
which  several  examples  are  shown  on  the  plates,  see  PL  iv,  9, 
PI.  v,  9,  PI.  vii,  1,2.  This  animal,  a  degraded  quadruped, 
seems  to  be  in  its  rendering  rather  Frisian  than  Anglo-Saxon, 
for  with  us  the  treatment  of  similar  types  is  artistically 
different.  This  may  be  judged  later  on  from  examples  that 
will  be  subsequently  discussed. 

On  PI.  v  in  No.  7,  the  reverse  of  the  good  full-faced  head, 
it  will  be  noted  how  very  effectively  as  a  matter  of  composi- 
tion the  crest  of  the  creature  sweeps  round  to  cut  the  line  of 
the  legs  below,  and  do  away  with  their  one,  two,  three,  four, 
appearance,  while  the  far  hind-leg  for  the  same  motive  but  in 
contradiction  to  what  is  natural  is  brought  in  front  of  the 
curl.  We  may  search  the  trientes  and  the  Gallo-British  coins 
in  vain  for  an  artistic  device  so  tactful.  In  Nos.  3,  5,  the 
quadruped  has  become  decidedly  thin  and  'leggy,'  and  his 
paws  begin  to  resemble  the  claws  of  a  bird.1  In  No.  9  the 
quadruped  form  is  still  discernible,  but  the  creature  is  aptly 
described  by  the  name  '  monster  '  by  which  it  is  known  in 
Holland,  where  all  the  161  sceattas  found  at  Terwispel  and 
seven-ninths  of  the  Hallum  hoard  of  250  were  like  No.  9. 
There  is  no  reason  to  seek  for  a  Scandinavian  or  a  Celtic 
origin  for  this  type  from  bracteates  or  coins.  It  descends 
clearly  enough  from  No.  7,  and  still  keeps  a  portion  of  the 
long  curved  crest.  It  is  another  question  what  can  be  the 
origin  of  PI.  v,  No.  7.  No  Roman  coin  which  is  obviously 
its  prototype  is  known  and  it  may  be  an  original  creation  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  designer.  Too  narrow  a  search  into  external 
sources  for  the  varying  animal  devices  on  the  sceattas  is  a 

1  There  may  be  some  doubt  as  to  the  kinship  of  the  animals  which  have 
the  heads  down  with  those  with  the  heads  turned  back,  but  the  obverses  are 
the  same,  and  serve  to  connect  them. 


THE  FANTASTIC  ANIMAL  83 

waste  of  time.  Given  the  quickness  of  fancy  of  which  sceat 
designers  must  certainly  have  been  possessed  these  bewildering 
changes  are  quite  natural.  The  creature  turns  his  head  over 
his  back,  in  Nos.  7,  9,  not  through  imitation  of  a  bracteate, 
but  because  his  forebears  have  been  taught  to  do  so  ever  since 
an  engraver  of  a  gem  or  a  coin-die  in  the  ancient  world  first 
made  them  stand  within  a  circular  field.  It  is  a  clear  case  of 
Darwinian  adaptation  of  an  organism  to  its  environment. 
He  is  fantastic,  not  because  he  apes  similar  weird  beings  on 
Gallic  coins,  but  because  he  represents  in  his  own  person  the 
same  artistic  process  that  went  on  in  the  case  of  the  earlier 
pieces  where  we  find  his  counterparts.  He  begins  as  they 
began  with  being  a  rational  quadruped  with  four  legs  and  tail 
and  other  members  of  modest  proportions  and  normal  adjust- 
ment. If  in  the  course  of  time  he  is  reduced  to  such 
anatomical  disarray  that  only  Dr.  Bernhard  Salin  can  tell 
whether  a  leg  is  an  ear  or  a  tongue  a  tail,  this  is  due  to  the 
waywardness  of  the  artist's  creative  fancy  and  not  to  any 
prosaic  tutelage  from  without. 

The  same  fanciful  creature  still  more  degraded  appears  in 
PI.  iv,  9,  a  Hallum  piece  at  Leeuwarden,  where  the  single 
foreleg,  which  is  still  a  leg  in  PI.  v,  9,  is  now  lifted  up  and 
used  like  an  arm.  The  obverse  type  here  is  no  longer  the 
full-face  head  but  a  rather  bold  though  rude  profile,  with  an 
indication  of  a  front  view  of  the  shoulders.  This  introduces 
us  to  the  profile  type  which  we  have  already  seen  in  a  debased 
form  on  the  '  London '  coins,  and  more  classically  designed  on 
1  the  Crondall  pieces,  PL  in,  6,  7,  8.  No  sceat  profile  is  so 
:  well  executed  as  the  Chalon  obverse  in  the  triens  series  shown 
PI.  11,  2,  and  it  is  not  often  that  we  find  one  equal  to  the 
Crondall  example,  PI.  in,  6.  This  however,  as  the  cross  on 
the  reverse  suggests,  may  be  after  600,  and  sceattas  of  VI 
would  on  the  principle  of  the  gradual  degradation  of  designs  be 
more  classical  still.  Fairly  wrought  profiles  occur  with  reverse 
types  that  may  be  early.      One  in  the  Hunterian  collection 


84  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

at  Glasgow,  PI.  iv,  10,  similar  to  No.  5  on  PI.  1  of  the 
British  Museum  Catalogue,  carries  in  front  of  the  face  the  enig- 
matical letters  TIC  and  bears  on  the  reverse  in  an  early  form 
the  very  familiar  '  standard '  type.  This  may  be  derived  from 
such  a  Roman  coin  as  that  given  No.  i'  on  PI.  1,  where  a 
military  standard  exhibits  the  letters  VOT  with  two  crosses 
below.  Among  the  Crondall  pieces  are  one  or  two  which  show 
this  device  apparently  (from  the  obverse)  imitated  from  a 
copper  coin  of  Licinius.1  These,  which  are  independent  of 
the  Frankish  trientes,  may  be  VI  productions,  and  the  sceat 
PI.  iv,  10,  might  be  equally  early.  There  are  coins  like  this 
in  several  collections,  with  a  neat  and  well-formed  '  standard ' 
reverse,  the  style  and  execution  of  which  would  point  to  VI. 
On  the  other  hand  this  same  '  standard '  type  occurs  in  such 
blundered  forms  and  with  such  late  obverses  that  in  itself  it 
cannot  be  held  a  mark  of  early  date.  Fairly  wrought  profile 
heads  occur  on  coins  of  various  epochs  and  these  too  cannot 
in  themselves  be  taken  as  evidence  of  date.  Mejuffr.  de  Man 
has  a  particularly  good  one,  PI.  iv,  11,  that  occurs  with  the 
Merovingian  reverse  of  a  bird  on  the  top  of  a  cross,  reckoned 
as  later  than  600,  and  it  is  an  interesting  fact  that  only  the 
other  day  a  coin,  so  like  this  that  one  would  think  it  must  have 
been  struck  by  the  same  moneyer,  came  to  light  in  the  grave 
of  an  Anglo-Saxon  at  Broadstairs,  PI.  iv,  12.  The  conjunction 
is  a  striking  proof  of  the  commercial  intercourse  across  the 
North  Sea.  The  well-designed  head  on  PL  iv,  3  occurs  with 
a  reverse  with  the  PADA  legend  in  runes  which  is  fixed  to 
about  656.  The  profile  heads  on  the  earliest  pennies  are  of 
course  still  later,  and  are  of  special  merit,  though  they  must 
have  been  executed  by  the  same  class  of  Anglo-Saxon  workmen 
that  were  busy  on  the  later  sceattas. 

Without  entering  further  into  questions  of  chronology  a 
word  may  be  said  about  an  interesting  series  of  profiles  in 
which  the  figure  is  holding  something  in  his  hand.     This  is 

1  British  Museum  Catalogue,  1,  xiii. 


SCEATTAS  ENGLISH  AND  DUTCH 


All  silver,  enlarged  from  i^  to  z\  diameters 


PROFILE  HEADS  85 

sometimes  a  cross,  but  is  also  commonly  a  cup,  and  occasion- 
ally a  bird.     PI.  vi,  Nos.  1  to  7  give  specimens.     Noteworthy 
in  several  of  these   is   the   arrangement   of  the  hair.     The 
starting  point  is  no  doubt  the  Roman  fillet,  as  in  PI.  1,  2,  and 
this   is  still  apparent  in  PI.    vi,   3.     In  the  other  examples 
shown,  PI.  vi,  1,  4,  6,  the  artist  has  played  with  the  ends  of 
the  band  and  tied  them  in  picturesque  knots,  so  that  the  pieces 
are  said  by  Mr.    Keary  to  have   'hair  and  dress  of  Saxon 
character.'1     There   is  undoubtedly  an  originality  about  the 
treatment  that  makes  these  heads  easily  distinguishable  from 
anything  in  the  Frankish  series,  and  the  feeling  for  knot-work 
is   significant  of  the   Anglo-Saxon   artistic   tendencies  at  the 
time.     Their  reverses  are  in  some  respects  of  much  interest. 
Some  particularly  spirited  animal  designs,  given  on  PI.   viii 
(p.  99),  occur  with  these  heads,  and  if  the  heads  seem  speci- 
ally Anglo-Saxon  so,  as  we  shall  see,  do  the  animals.     Other 
reverses  however  occur  with  these  same  heads,  as  for  example 
PI.  vi,  1.     Some  of  these  reverses  may  be  taken  in  connection 
with  those  of  the  '  London  '  coins  on  the  former  plate,  and 
with  some  other  obverse  and  reverse  types  given  in  the  lowest 
line  of  this  same  PI.  iv.     In  the  '  Londons  '  a  standing  figure 2 
holding  a   long-stemmed  cross  in  each  hand  is  supported  on 
some  object  of  curved  form,  while  in  the  case  of  several  of  the 
heads  now  under  notice,  PI.  vi,  1,  2,  the  same  figure  holds  on 
the  reverse  a  cross  in  one  hand  and  a  bird  in  the  other.     The 
latter,  a  good  specimen  from  Domburg  in  the  de  Man  collec- 
tion,  shows   the    curved    object   very   distinctly    in    a    form 
resembling  a  boat,  while  this  resemblance  appears  still  more 
clearly  in  Lord  Grantley's  fine  coin  PI.  vi,  7,  where  one  seems 
to  have  a  view  in  perspective  into  the  boat.     This  makes  more 
reasonable  than  would  appear  at  first  the  suggestion  which  was 
once  made  that  the  figure  represented  the  earliest  Christian 

1  British  Museum  Catalogue,  1,  12. 

2  Described  in  the  British  Museum  Catalogue,  1,  iof.,  as  *  helmeted,'  but 
on  this  see  postea  p.  88. 


86  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

missionary  sailing  over  the  North  Sea  to  convert  the  pagans  ! 
One  reverse,  PI.  iv,  16,  offers  this  same  figure  equipped  with 
a  very  aggressive  pair  of  moustaches.  No.  1 5  on  PL  iv,  with 
the  cross  and  bird,  has  the  peculiarity  that  he  is  seated  in  a 
chair,  on  which  he  turns  with  a  gesture  reminiscent  of  the 
antique.  No.  14,  next  to  this,  shows  two  standing  figures 
holding  one  long  cross  between  them,  a  type  somewhat 
resembling  one  on  a  Frankish  silver  coin  shown  PL  11,  11. 
Lastly  No.  13  on  PL  iv  gives  a  device  resembling  the  *  Victory  ' 
common  on  the  Merovingian  trientes  of  VI.  About  some  of 
these  reverses,  e.g.  No.  1 5,  PL  iv,  there  is  a  certain  delicacy 
of  execution  worthy  of  notice.  The  bird  in  No.  1,  PL  vi  is 
charmingly  wrought. 

Some  attention  has  now  been  paid  to  various  types  of  heads 
that  appear  on  the  sceattas,  and  with  these  have  been  noticed 
some  of  the  reverse  types  that  accompany  them.  The  relations 
between  obverse  and  reverse  types  on  the  sceattas  are  irregular. 
A  large  number  of  examples  may  agree  in  showing  the  same 
devices,  but  then  another  example  may  come  to  light  that  with 
a  similar  obverse  or  reverse  to  all  the  others  has  a  totally 
different  type  upon  the  other  side.  This  is  the  case  for 
example  with  the  moustached  figure  with  the  two  crosses, 
PL  iv,  16,  the  obverse  of  which  is  quite  different  from  the  pro- 
file heads,  with  which  the  standing  figure  is  generally  associated. 
In  sceat  study  the  relations  of  obverse  and  reverse  must  always 
be  taken  account  of,  and  the  possession  of  a  common  reverse 
may  furnish  an  argument  for  the  connection  of  two  obverse 
types  which  otherwise  might  be  treated  as  distinct.  To 
exhibit  a  different  reverse  on  the  other  hand  does  not  remove 
one  of  a  set  of  obverses  out  of  its  apparent  relation  to  its 
fellows. 

A  notice  of  a  particularly  interesting  sceat  type  that 
stands  somewhat  apart  may  here  be  introduced.  This  is  the 
female  centaur,  which  occurs  twice  in  the  British  Museum,  at 
the  Hague,  in  the  Hunterian  collection  and   in  the  former 


THE  FEMALE  CENTAUR  87 

collection  of  Mr.  Carlyon-Britton,  and  no  doubt  elsewhere. 
In  all  these  five  cases  it  is  associated  with  the  same  fanciful 
reverse,  belonging  to  a  series  of  devices  on  which  something 
will  have  to  be  said,  and  this  fact  may  suggest  that  it  was  the 
product  of  a  single  mint.  This  device  on  the  other  side  is 
shown  in  connection  with  the  Hague  example  PI.  vi,  9.  It 
represents  its  original  motive  in  an  advanced  stage  of  morpho- 
logical change  (p.  100  f.),  whether  we  envisage  such  change  as 
degradation  or  evolution,  and  may  accordingly  be  so  late  in 
the  sceat  period  as  to  show  the  influence  of  the  Carolingian 
Renaissance.  The  type  of  the  female  centaur  is  of  course 
familiar  in  classical  art.  Introduced  it  seems  by  the  painter 
Zeuxis,  the  motive  occurs  in  Pompeian  wall  decoration,  and  it 
is  interesting  also  to  find  it  on  a  piece  of  Roman  silver  work 
in  the  form  of  a  cup  ornamented  with  repousse  designs  found 
at  Bernay  in  Normandy  and  now  in  the  Louvre.  This  shows 
that  the  type  was  known  in  this  part  of  Europe,  and  the 
Bernay  cup  may  actually  have  furnished  the  model.  From 
the  Carolingian  epoch  we  possess  a  poem  by  the  famous 
Theodulf,  made  bishop  of  Orleans  in  78 1,1  the  '  Pindar  '  of 
the  Aachen  literary  coterie,  in  which  he  describes  an  antique 
silver  cup  on  which  was  represented  the  Centaur  Nessus, 
though  not  necessarily  any  lady  relative.  In  the  British 
Museum  Catalogue  the  creature  is  described  as  winged,  but  a 
comparison  of  examples  seems  to  show  that  it  brandishes  in 
both  hands  branches  of  trees,  a  favourite  occupation  of  the 
Centaurs,  though  not  perhaps  of  the  female  members  of  their 
community.  The  head  is  always  shown  in  profile  to  the 
right,  the  hair  appears  to  be  long  and  flowing,  and  there  is  a 
magnificent  tail.  The  Hunterian  specimen  is  on  the  whole 
the  best  and  is  given  in  No.  1 1  on  PI.  vi,  Mr.  Carlyon- 
Britton's,  which  gives  the  head  and  arms,  is  No.  10,  while 
one  of  those  in  the  national  collection  is  added  for  comparison 
in  No.   8,  and  the  Hague  specimen   in  No.  9,  with  obverse 

1  Carm.  28,  v.  179  f. 


88  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

and  reverse.  It  should  be  noted  that  this  reverse  type  occurs 
in  all  the  examples. 

It  was  noted  above x  that  the  standing  figure  with  the  two 
crosses  or  cross  and  bird  is  described  as  '  helmeted.'  The 
head-piece  in  the  centaur  coin  looks  very  like  this  same 
helmet  of  the  standing  figures,  but  the  artist  of  PI.  vi,  8,  who 
is  fully  convinced  of  the  femininity  of  his  model,  would  not 
have  crowned  her  with  a  casque.  A  comparison  of  Nos.  i  to  6 
on  PL  vi  will  probably  convince  the  observer  that  this  is 
only  a  conventional  rendering  of  the  nose  and  the  hair  which, 
distinct  in  No.  3,  are  run  together  in  No.  4  and  are  reduced 
to  a  single  conventionalized  feature  in  the  reverse  of  No.  1 
and  the  rest  of  the  series. 

It  will  be  convenient  to  notice  here  one  or  two  types  of  a 
miscellaneous  kind  which  serve  to  show  the  great  variety  that 
exists  in  sceat  devices,  and  which  in  some  cases  will  be  useful 
later  on  in  connection  with  the  designs  on  other  artistic 
objects  of  the  period.  The  remainder  of  PL  vi  is  occupied 
with  these,  and  they  may  have  a  passing  word  before  we  go  on 
to  examine  the  treatment  of  certain  special  animal  forms  on 
the  sceattas  wherein  as  we  shall  see  their  chief  interest  and 
value  consist.  The  coin  given  in  No.  12  passed  from  the 
Montague  collection  to  the  British  Museum  since  the  publica- 
tion of  the  Catalogue  to  which  reference  has  so  often  been 
made.  The  obverse  shows  a  profile  head  with  uplifted  hand 
rendered  in  a  remarkable  fashion  with  a  tall  cross  apparently 
lying  across  the  palm.  The  hand  appears  on  Merovingian 
trientes  at  Clermont  and  elsewhere.  The  reverse  is  sui  generis 
in  so  far  as  no  similar  device  is  known.  At  first  sight  it 
looks  like  a  rather  careful  representation  of  some  definite 
object  triangular  in  plan,  but  this  appearance  is  probably 
deceptive  and  the  type  may  be  simply  a  result  of  degradation. 
The  two  crosses  below  appear  in  the  same  position  in  some 
versions  of  the  well-known  *  standard '  type,  and  the  three 

1  ante,  p.  85,  note. 


SCEATTAS,  AND  A  ROMAN  PROTOTYPE 


Silver,  enlarged  2  to  2^  diameters 


SOME  SPECIAL  DEVICES  89 

dots  in  the  angle  formed  by  two  sweeping  lines  above  can  be 
seen  on  the  particularly  good  example  of  the  device  in  the 
British  Museum  given  PI.  vi,  21.  The  three  pellets  in  the 
design  under  review  have  been  brought  into  connection  with 
the  three  heads,  of  two  Emperors  with  a  Victory  above,  on  a 
familiar  Roman  reverse  shown  PI.  1,  1' .  In  any  case  how- 
ever, the  motive  may  be  taken  as  evidence  that  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  designer  liked  to  work  towards  some  more  or  less 
definite  form,  and  was  not  satisfied,  like  his  Gallic  predecessor, 
with  the  mere  'disjecta  membra'  of  older  types.  No.  13 
gives  us  a  minute  full  face  in  the  centre  of  the  field  surrounded 
with  ten  little  bosses  each  within  a  ring.  This  reminds  us  a 
little  of  designs  that  occur  in  the  tomb  furniture  of  the  period 
(p.  324).  No.  14  shows  on  the  obverse  a  full-face  bust  with 
hair  on  both  sides  treated  after  the  fashion  of  the  profiles 
higher  up  on  the  same  plate,  and  on  the  reverse  a  device  of 
interlacing  lines  not  unlike  what  we  have  already  seen  on  one 
of  the  Merovingian  pieces,  PL  n,  10.  On  No.  15  are  four 
Latin  crosses,  each  in  a  quadrant  of  a  square.  No.  16  shows 
a  motive  which  occurs  far  more  often  on  the  Continent  than 
among  ourselves,  and  resembles  in  this  the  kindred  pattern 
already  noticed  under  the  name  *  Sigillum  Davidis  '  and  shown 
in  No.  13  on  PI.  11.  In  No.  17  we  are  disposed  to  see  a 
modification  of  the  '  step  pattern,'  so  familiar  in  the  design  of 
the  cloisons  in  inlaid  Kentish  jewellery,  as  seen  for  example  on 
the  frontispiece  and  occurring  also  on  a  unique  ornament  at 
Devizes  (p.  425).  No.  1 8  is  regarded  as  a  cross  of  the  so-called 
1  Maltese  '  type  with  the  spaces  between  the  arms  filled  in 
with  rosettes.  No.  1 9  shows  on  the  obverse  two  profile  heads 
facing,  with  between  them  a  cross  that  ends  below  in  three 
prongs  like  a  trident.  This  suggests  a  portable  wooden  cross 
that  might  be  carried  in  procession  and  set  up  where  required. 
Readers  of  Bede  will  recognize  such  an  object  as  one  well 
known  at  the  time.  There  is  a  Hunterian  specimen  of  the 
same  type  that  shows  the  continuous  stem   quite  distinctly. 


9o  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

The  reverse  has  something  of  the  appearance  of  an  open  rose, 
but  is  made  up  of  four  birds  each  perched  on  the  end  of  one 
arm  of  a  central  Greek  cross.  Lastly,  No.  20,  formerly  in  the 
Carlyon-Britton  collection  (see  also  British  Museum  Catalogue, 
PL  iv,  No.  1),  shows  in  the  centre  a  bird  standing  on  and 
surrounded  by  objects  the  interpretation  of  which  is  not  clear. 
There  is  something  which  resembles  a  bent  pin  with  a  round 
head  and  a  point  that  is  enclosed  in  a  double  row  of  pellets. 
A  torque  or  bracelet  of  some  kind  has  been  suggested. 

The  most  important  branch  of  sceat  study  from  the 
artistic  standpoint  is  that  on  which  we  now  enter,  as  we  pro- 
ceed to  examine  the  varied  and  interesting  types  in  which  the 
animal  form,  naturalistically  treated  or  disguised,  is  the  pre- 
dominant feature. 

One  animal  form  has  already  been  noticed,  the  quadruped 
of  PL  v,  3,  5,  7,  which  we  see  on  the  plate  changing  from 
a  more  or  less  normal  creature  to  the  monster  of  No.  9, 
that  appears  on  numberless  examples  especially  in  Holland. 
The  two  similar  reverses,  PL  vn,  1,  2,  were  aptly  cited  by 
Mr.  Wigersma  as  illustrating  the  degradation  of  a  type. 
He  believed  that  No.  2  was  a  blundered  copy  of  No.  1 .  The 
latter  is  sharp  and  clear  in  its  delineation,  with  the  eye  well 
made  out  and  tail,  crest,  and  dewlap  finished  off  with  round 
knobs.  In  No.  2  the  beast  looks  the  other  way,  to  the  right 
instead  of  the  left,  and  this  is  just  what  would  happen  if  a  coin 
like  No.  1  were  being  copied  in  intaglio  to  make  a  new  die. 
When  the  die  was  used  for  stamping,  the  impression  would  of 
course  be  in  relief  and  would  be  reversed.  The  copy  was 
evidently  made  by  a  comparatively  inexpert  artist.  It  is  pro- 
posed here  to  regard  all  the  fantastic  creatures  of  the  so-called 
'  Wodan-Monster  '  type x  so  common  in  Holland  as  descended 
through  forms  like  PL  v,  3,  5,  from  PL  v,  7,  a  creature  that 
from  the  form  of  his  jaws  appears  to  represent  a  wolf. 

1  This  is  the  type  with  a  full-face  head  on  one  side  and  a  debased  animal 
form  on  the  other,  see  PI.  v,  9. 


THE  BIRD  FORM  91 

These  jaws  and  the  general  form  of  the  beast  affiliate  with 
the  reverses  of  the  c  Wodan- Monster '  type  some  English 
pieces  of  which  the  British  Museum  coin,  PI.  vn,  4,  may 
serve  as  a  specimen.  He  has  the  turned  back  head  and  the 
single  leg  of  the  monster  on  the  Dutch  coin,  PI.  iv,  9,  but  the 
jaws  carry  him  back  nearer  to  the  original  of  PI.  v,  7.  Is  it 
going  too  far  to  see  in  this  rendering,  PI.  vn,  4,  and  similar 
pieces,  English  work,  while  the  *  monsters  '  generally,  as  in 
PI.  iv,  9,  PI.  v,  9,  PI.  vn,  1,  2,  are  of  Frisian  fabrication? 
The  British  Museum  pieces,  for  there  are  several  there,  and 
similar  coins  such  as  were  in  Mr.  Carlyon-Britton's  collection, 
seem  more  massive  in  their  forms  and  modelled  with  more 
plastic  feeling  than  the  thin  and  scraggy  atomies  that  spread 
their  spidery  limbs  over  the  coins  with  the  full-faced  c  Wodan  ' 
head,  of  which  more  than  350  examples  were  found  at 
Terwispel  and  Hallum  alone.  The  full-faced  head,  PI.  v,  9, 
in  the  form  in  which  it  occurs  with  these  reverses  in  Holland, 
is  not  common  in  our  native  collections,  and  it  is  quite 
possible  that  these  coins  were  made  on  the  other  side  of  the 
North  Sea. 

As  in  a  way  intermediate  between  the  quadruped  proper 
and  the  bird,  there  may  be  noticed  one  or  two  griffins  as  sceat 
types.  The  best  is  on  an  unpublished  '  Montague '  coin  in 
Lord  Grantley's  collection,  and  the  two  shown  in  PI.  vn,  3,  5, 
are  in  the  British  Museum.  The  obverse  of  one  gives  us  a 
bird  in  an  upright  perky  attitude  and  of  a  slender  build,  a 
type  which  will  meet  us  again  later  on  in  another  connection 
(p.  105).  The  bird  type  generally  on  the  sceattas  may  have  a 
word.  A  bird  perched  on  the  top  of  a  cross  has  already 
occurred  as  the  reverse  of  coins  with  well-designed  heads  in 
Nos.  1 1,  12  on  PI.  iv.  The  type  occurs  on  a  triens  of  Laon, 
Prou,  Catalogue,  PI.  xvn,  No.  19,  see  PI.  11,  9  (p.  65),  and  on 
this  M.  Prou  asks  the  question  1 :  '  Serait-ce  a  une  monnaie  de 
Marc-Antoine  qu'un  monetaire  de  Laon  aurait  emprunte  une 

1  I.e.,  p.  xcv. 


92  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

aigle  legionnaire,'  implying  in  his  opinion  a  possible  early- 
date  for  the  piece.  The  bird  thus  used  does  not  seem  to 
suffer  any  transformations  on  the  sceattas.  It  is  the  same 
creature  which  multiplied  by  four  makes  the  rose-like  pattern 
on  the  reverse  of  No.  19  on  PI.  vi.  A  natural  bird,  often 
very  happily  treated,  is  held  falcon-like  on  the  wrist  of  the 
standing  or  seated  figure  with  the  long  cross,  and  appears  in 
front  of  some  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  profile  heads,  of  which  there 
has  been  question  on  a  previous  page,  see  PI.  vi,  I,  5.1 

A  far  more  important  bird  form,  for  which  the  proto- 
type is  also  to  be  found  among  the  trientes,  has  been  already 
given  in  Nos.  1,  4,  8,  on  PI.  v  and  is  shown  here  in  another 
example  from  the  Evans  collection,  PI.  vn,  6'. 

A  bird  is  seen  pecking  at  a  bunch  of  grapes,  for  it  is 
certainly  the   vine  which  is  represented  not,   as  Mr.  Keary 
suggested,  an  ear  of  corn.     No   normal  corn  stem  gives  off 
branches.     The  suggestion  for  the  design  may  very  well  have 
been  furnished  by  the  beautiful  trientes  of  Cahors,  by  far  the 
most  artistically  pleasing  of  all  those  figured  in   M.  Prou's 
Catalogue,  where  they  are  numbered  1921   and    1922  ;  these 
were  given  PI.  11,  6,  7  (p.  65).     Here  in  one  case  a  single  bird 
and  in  the  other  a  pair  of  them  is  shown  contemplating,  but 
not  actually  biting  at,  a  vine.     The  birds  are    seen  from  the 
back  and  turn  their  heads  to  the  side.     The  bird  on  the  second 
Cahors  coin,  PI.  11,  7,  is  very  well  made  out  and  serves  to 
explain  the  less  naturalistic  Anglo-Saxon  rendering,  where,  as 
in  the  unpublished   British   Museum  example,  PI.    v,   8,  the 
upper  parts   of  the  two  wings  are  seen  like  shoulders,  while 
there  is  some  pretence  at  feathering  along  the  tail.     In  some 
of  our    native  examples    however,  as    is    well    seen    in    the 
Evans  specimen,  PI.  vn,  6',  the  creature  is  opening  its  beak 
to  the  extreme   limit   as   if   to    take    in    a  whole  bunch  of 

1  This  is  of  some  importance  in  relation  to  the  question  of  the  history  of 
falconry  in  England  that  emerges  in  connection  with  the  '  falconer '  on  the 
Bewcastle  Cross. 


THE  BIRD  PECKING  AT  GRAPES  93 

grapes  at  a  mouthful,  a  significant  mark  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
artist's  vigour  in  design.  On  the  other  hand,  as  showing  the 
feeling  for  variety  in  the  treatment  of  these  common  types 
in  individual  renderings,  we  note  that  Lord  Grantley's  bird, 
No.  1,  PL  v,  seems  to  have  delicately  picked  off  a  single 
grape  in  the  dainty  avian  fashion. 

Let  us  consider  the  pieces  first  of  all  from  the  artistic 
side.  Note  how  effectively  the  two  vine  stems  with  their 
curved  lines  enclose  the  long  oval  of  the  bird  and  give  it  a 
just  relation  to  the  circular  field  of  the  coin,  and  how  boldly 
the  firm  straight  legs  of  the  animal  cross  and  oppose  these 
curves,  and  end  in  the  three  emphatic  talons,  which  in  PI.  v, 
1,  8,  have  an  indication  of  the  joint  where  the  actual  claw 
issues  from  its  sheath.  In  its  style  and  distinction  the 
design  will  compare  favourably  with  the  best  coin  types 
known  to  numismatists,  though  of  course  the  work  is  very 
sketchy.  As  regards  the  motive,  the  bird  pecking  at  the 
vine  is  a  familiar  Early  Christian  device  and  has  a  distinctly 
religious  significance.  We  shall  meet  with  it  often  on  the 
carved  stones  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  period.  It  is  however  in 
its  origin  pre-Christian,  as  will  be  seen  when  the  motive  is 
discussed  on  a  later  page,  and  it  might  quite  easily  be  adopted 
by  a  pagan  designer  in  this  country  from  a  Frankish  coin  or 
other  object,  without  any  other  than  an  artistic  significance. 
Hence  the  pieces  with  this  type  might  well  be  of  VI  origin. 
They  are  not  common,  and  the  writer  has  met  with  no 
example  on  the  Continent.  Lord  Grantley  has  several,  there 
are  two  in  the  British  Museum,  a  well-preserved  one  in  Sir 
Arthur  Evans'  collection  at  Youlbury,  PI.  vu,  6,  and  one  in 
the  Hunterian  collection. 

The  reverse1  though  not  so  interesting  as  a  piece  of  art  is 

1  In  the  British  Museum  Catalogue  the  wolf  and  twins  are  regarded  as 
the  obverse  type,  but  on  the  Roman  coins  from  which  this  device  comes  it  is 
always  a  reverse,  and  appears  later  on  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  penny  series,  as  a 
reverse  type,  PI.  vm,  18, 


94  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

historically  of  greater  importance  than  the  beautiful  main 
type.  It  gives  us  the  twins  Romulus  and  Remus  suckled  by 
the  she-wolf,  a  device  that  occurs  elsewhere  in  Anglo-Saxon 
art  as  on  the  '  Franks '  casket  in  the  British  Museum.  Roman 
coins  often  show  it,  and  one  of  the  best  of  these,  a  fine  coin  of 
Carausius,  found  at  Bampton  in  Oxfordshire  and  in  Sir  Arthur 
Evans'  possession  at  Youlbury,  is  given  PI.  vil,  7.  (The 
original  is  perfect,  the  photograph  is  defective  on  one  side.) 
When  compared  with  the  Youlbury  sceat  reverse,  No.  6,  the 
likeness  is  unmistakable.  The  thighs,  tail,  udder,  forelegs, 
and  head  with  pronounced  ears  turned  round  towards  the 
children,  are  easily  to  be  recognized,  and  the  legs  though  not 
the  arms  of  the  twins  are  in  evidence.  The  body  of  the  beast 
however  has  lost  substance  and  becomes  little  more  than  a 
series  of  parallel  strokes  that  imitate  the  fell,  which  is  clearly 
indicated  on  the  Roman  examples  of  the  type,  such  as  that 
shown,  PI.  vii r,  2 1  (p.  99).  The  twins  on  PL  v  are  not  so  well 
made  out,  but  in  all  cases  the  rendering  of  the  Roman  original 
is  close  enough  for  us  to  regard  the  pieces  as  typologically 
early.  It  may  be  objected  to  this  that  a  much  later  rendering 
of  the  same  classical  original,  on  a  coin  of  iEthelberht  of  East 
Anglia  who  was  killed  by  OfFa  of  Mercia  in  794,  see  PL  viii,  1 8, 
is  far  more  exact  and  workmanlike  than  any  of  these  sceat 
reverses.  This  may  be  seen  by  comparing  it  with  a  Roman 
original  as  they  both  appear  on  PL  viii,  18,  21.  There  is 
however  a  good  reason  for  the  excellence  of  this  remarkable 
penny.  It  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  striking  proof  of  the  influence 
on  the  England  of  that  day  of  the  Carolingian  renaissance, 
and  as  representing  a  careful  and  conscientious  study  of  the 
antique,  such  as  we  find  evidenced  in  other  works  of  the  time. 
In  VI  or  VII  Roman  models  were  taken  unconsciously  as  a 
matter  of  course,  and  while  the  first  reproductions  would  be 
fairly  close  there  would  be  no  scholarly  esprit  de  corps,  such  as 
existed  at  periods  of  classical  renaissance,  which  would  call  the 
artist  back  to  his  duty  when  he  began  to  deviate  fancifully 


THE  LIFE  HISTORY  OF  A  TYPE  95 

from  his  pattern.  Hence  a  process  of  *  degradation  '  in  the 
handling  of  the  type  would  go  on  unchecked,  and  it  might 
either  be  broken  up  into  meaningless  elements  as  in  the  case  of 
the  Gallic  coins  on  PI.  11,  or  manipulated  to  new  and  unex- 
pected results  as  by  the  constructive  fancy  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
artists.  Hence  we  may  safely  assume  that  the  typological 
changes  which  transformed  the  original  wolf  and  twins  to 
something  quite  different  follow  each  other  on  the  whole  in 
order  of  time,  and  there  was  no  temporary  recovery  which 
might  result  in  a  rendering  near  to  the  original  occurring  at  a 
comparatively  advanced  date.  Hence  the  reverse  as  well  as 
the  obverse  of  these  coins  may  very  well  be  VI  work. 

Sundry  later  or  '  degraded  '  devices  may  be  affiliated  to  the 
wolf  and  twins  along  at  least  two  lines.  In  the  one  case  the 
descent  can  be  traced  with  practical  certainty  but  in  the  other 
we  have  to  take  a  decided  jump  and  be  as  satisfied  as  we  can 
with  a  plausible  hypothesis  in  place  of  demonstration.  The 
latter  case  may  be  taken  first. 

No  sceat  type  is  more  common,  especially  in  Holland,  than 
the  one  already  shown  PI.  iv,  1,  2,  6.  It  exhibits  disposed 
across  the  field — whether  horizontally  or  vertically  depends 
on  the  theory  we  take  of  its  origin — a  curved  form,  that  in 
many  examples  is  more  plump  and  cushion-like  than  in  the 
examples  just  quoted,  from  the  extrados  of  which  a  series  of 
spines  start  up  like  the  quills  of  a  porcupine.  Within  the 
curve  are  commonly  certain  strokes  or  dots  or  nondescript 
forms  dotted  irregularly  over  the  space.  Sir  John  Evans  took 
the  view  that  the  device  was  a  degradation  of  the  profile  head 
so  common  on  the  coins  and  this  is  also  the  view  of  Mr.  Keary 
in  the  British  Museum  Catalogue1  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  coins. 
On  this  theory  the  curved  form  should  of  course  be  disposed 
vertically.  The  chief  objection  to  this,  probably  now  the 
general  English  theory,  is  that  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the 
earlier  stages   in    this  complete   transformation  were  accom- 

1  Vol.  1,  p.  7. 


96  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

plished  in  view  of  the  constant  production  during  all  the  time 
of  real  profile  heads,  the  tradition  of  which  never  dies  out. 
One  can  hardly  imagine  one  moneyer  or  one  set  of  moneyers 
gradually  effacing  in  their  heads  all  resemblance  to  the  human 
profile  while  the  face  was  being  intelligibly  rendered  by  their 
colleagues  all  about  them.  A  certain  restraining  force  must 
one  would  think  have  been  at  work  which  would  militate 
against  the  supposed  process.  Indeed  the  coin  which  to  the 
eyes  of  the  writer  seems  most  like  a  degenerate  head,  see 
PI.  vn,  1 6,  a  Middelburg  specimen,  has  actually  on  the  other 
side  of  it  a  real  though  clumsily  rendered  head  in  profile. 
Some  Dutch  numismatists  think  that  such  examples  tell  fatally 
against  the  *  head '  derivation,  on  the  ground  that  no  moneyer 
would  use  on  the  same  coin  a  degraded  and  a  naturalistic  form 
of  the  same  type. 

The  other  theory  was  enunciated  by  Mr.  Dirks  in  his 
epoch-making  paper  on  the  Frisian  finds,1  and  has  been 
generally  held  in  Holland.  It  derives  the  device  in  question 
from  the  she-wolf  of  the  reverse  now  before  us,  and  in  agree- 
ment with  this  the  Dutch  numismatist  published  these  coins 
with  the  curved  form  horizontally  disposed  and  called  the 
type  *  Wolvin.'  In  favour  of  this  view  are  the  facts  (i)  that 
the  she-wolf  in  its  proper  shape  is  rare  on  the  sceattas  and 
would  not  have  acted  with  the  restraining  force  just  accredited 
to  the  profile  heads,  (2)  that  the  erect  spines  do  occur  as  we 
shall  see  on  the  backs  of  creatures  that  certainly  descend  from 
a  she-wolf  mother,  and  (3)  that  at  least  one  intermediate  piece 
can  be  produced  which  seems  to  show  the  process  of  degradation 
actually  going  on.  Reserving  the  second  point  for  future 
elucidation,  we  may  enforce  the  third  by  the  example  shown 
in  No.  9  on  PL  vn,  a  sceat  in  the  Museum  at  Middelburg, 
whereon,  unless  the  forms  have  come  together  by  some  curious 
accident,  we  seem  to  see  the  wolf  and  twins  actually  in  process 
of  disintegration.  The  body  of  the  creature  and  the  bristles 
1  De  Vrije  Fries,  twaalfde  deel,  Leeuwardcn,  1872. 


TRANSFORMATION  OF  A  TYPE 


97 


on  her  back,  which  can  be  seen  in  examples  of  the  genuine 
type  such  as  PI.  v,  8,  appear  in  PI.  vn,  9,  though  the  bristles 
are  more  accentuated  and  start  from  round  dots  instead  of  only 
ending  in  these  as  in  No.  8  on  PI.  v.  The  two  dots  joined  by 
short  lines  meeting  at  an  angle  seen  at  the  right  in  PI.  vn,  9, 
may  be  explained  by  the  similar  dots  indicating  the  head  of 
the  beast,  as  in  No.  4  on  PI.  v.  The  children's  heads  and 
arms  seem  unmistakable,  and  if  it  be  objected  that  arms  do 
not  appear  on  the  four  sceat  reverses,  they  may  be  seen  fully 
in  evidence  on  the  Roman  prototype,  PI.  vu,  7.  There  are 
enough  bent  lines  below  in  PI.  vu,  9  to  stand  for  the  legs 
of  the  twins  and  to  leave  some  over  for  those  of  their  foster 
mother. 

This  question  however  of  the  ultimate  origin  of  the  con- 
ventional device  under  analysis  may  be  left  uncertain  while 
attention  is  now  paid  to  the  curious  modifications  which  the 
device  suffers,  in  the  course  of  which  it  is  carried  further  and 
further  away  from  its  primal  shape  whether  that  were  profile 
head  or  she- wolf  body. 

These  modifications  are  illustrated  on  the  lower  part  of 
PI.  vu,  Nos.  10  to  20.  They  are  grouped,  it  must  be  ex- 
plained, in  an  arbitrary  order  and  the  simplest,  No.  10, 
from  the  de  Man  collection,  has  been  taken  as  the  starting 
point.  Here  the  curved  piece  is  almost  perfectly  symmetrical 
but  in  No.  1 1  it  has  as  it  were  a  head  and  tail.  The  former 
in  Nos.  12,  13  is  cut  off  from  the  body  by  a  sort  of  neck 
ornament.  In  the  last  piece  on  this  line  the  strokes  within  the 
curve,  so  regular  in  the  first  three,  are  now  tumbled  about 
anyhow,  and  soon,  in  No.  14,  they  are  coming  together  in  the 
form  of  a  triangle,  and  this  triangle,  in  No.  15,  is  attached  to 
the  end  of  the  curved  form  like  a  head,  while  in  No.  16  it  is 
provided  with  an  eye,  which  appears  in  the  form  of  a  circle. 
This  is  the  Middelburg  example  already  noticed  for  its 
resemblance  to  a  degraded  form  of  the  profile  head.  To 
bring  this  out  more  clearly  the  curved  form  is  placed  in  a 

HI  G 


98  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

vertical  position.  The  significance  of  the  type  on  the  other  side 
of  the  coin  has  just  been  noted  (p.  96).  No.  1  on  PI.  iv  (p.  79) 
shows  a  variation  in  that  there  is  no  triangle,  but  the  plain 
head  of  PI.  vu,  12,  13,  is  forked  as  if  to  suggest  open  jaws. 
PI.  vu,  17,  gives  a  coin  at  Middelburg  that  is  too  much 
damaged  to  admit  of  an  assured  reading,  but,  if  at  the  end 
opposite  to  the  triangular  head  we  can  discern  a  leg  like  that 
of  a  bird  ending  in  a  claw,  we  see  the  beginning  of  a  feature 
that  in  other  examples  comes  fully  into  evidence.  No.  18 
presents  us  with  a  fully  formed  bird  with  head  up,  the  spines 
being  treated  like  the  feathers  of  a  wing,  and  finally  Nos.  19, 
20,  give  us  a  completely  formed  bird  with  all  its  parts,  a  new 
type  that  has  been  evolved  before  our  eyes  from  the  wrecks 
of  some  former  representation. 

The  scheme  here  followed  has  been  already  acknowledged 
to  be  an  arbitrary  one,  and  it  may  be  regarded  at  best  as  a 
harmless  play  of  fancy  for  the  reason  that  it  can  legitimately 
be  argued  that  No.  10  may  just  as  well  be  a  simplification  of 
an  earlier  form,  say  Nos.  14  or  15,  as  a  stage  in  its  evolution. 
To  set  against  this  is  the  fact  that  the  triangle,  and  also  the 
forked  end,  are  late  and  are  found  with  obverses  of  iEthelred 
dating  from  the  last  quarter  of  VII,  PI.  iv,  1,  2.  The  other 
side  of  No.  17,  at  Middelburg,  exhibits  an  utterly  inchoate 
reminiscence  of  the  '  standard '  type  that  must  be  very  late. 
On  the  whole  perhaps  a  derivation  from  the  she-wolf  is  the 
more  probable,  and  it  may  be  claimed  as  a  point  in  favour  of 
this  that  No.  9  on  PI.  vu,  which  has  been  adduced  as  an  inter- 
mediate stage,  possesses  the  '  standard  '  for  its  reverse,  which 
is  normal  for  the  numerous  Frisian  examples  of  this  group, 
PI.  vu,  10  to  20.  One  obverse  in  the  Hunterian,  PI.  vu,  8, 
has  also  a  reveise  with  the  'standard'  type,  and  gives  us  a 
design  that  has  a  bearing  on  this  question  of  derivation. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  we  have  here  a  degraded  form  of  a 
wolf  or  other  quadruped  similar  to  No.  7  on  PI.  v.  The  jaws 
show  this,  and  the  loss  of  the  legs  will  not  surprise  us  when 


ENGLISH  SCEAT  COINS  WITH  ARTISTIC  TYPES 


Silver,  enlarged  about  2  diameters 


CHANGES  IN  THE  SHE-WOLF  TYPE  99 

we  have  gone  over  the  next  series  of  types  presently  to  be 
examined.  The  body  of  this  creature  gives  us  the  curved 
form  already  discussed  and  the  spines  upon  its  back  start  from 
round  dots  as  the  spines  do  in  PI.  vn,  10  to  20.  If  the  head 
were  dropped  off  the  remainder  would  correspond  with  the 
curved  form  and  spines  of  PI.  vn,  10  to  15. 

There  now  offers  itself  for  consideration  an  interesting 
series  of  devices  derived  from  the  she-wolf  through  gradations 
that  can  clearly  be  traced,  in  the  course  of  which  the  animal 
form  passes  through  extraordinary  morphological  changes. 
On  following  these  one  is  astonished  and  delighted  at  the 
exuberant  fancy  of  the  designer,  and  the  decision  with  which 
he  gives  accent  to  the  picturesque  features  that  evolve  them- 
selves successively  through  the  transformations.  To  vindicate 
for  the  Anglo-Saxon  artist  of  VII  and  VIII  a  reputation  for 
vigour  and  originality  nothing  is  needed  but  a  study  of  these 
sceat  types  in  which  the  wolf  starts  with  his  normal  anatomy 
and  proportions  but  ends  as  a  mere  elongated  '  Wurm,'  still 
armed  however  as  a  rule  with  a  head  of  full  vulpine  ferocity. 
The  affiliation  of  the  types  is  in  this  case  not  an  arbitrary 
matter  for  we  possess  here,  what  is  lacking  to  the  set  of  types 
last  considered,  an  assured  starting  point. 

This  starting  point  is  found  in  a  rendering  of  the  she-wolf 
represented  by  such  an  example  as  No.  6  on  PI.  vu,  where  the 
animal  has  an  elongated  body  with  hardly  any  substance  in  it 
and  a  head  bent  down  and  looking  inwards.  No.  1  on  PI.  vin 
is  clearly  derived  from  a  quadruped  of  this  kind,  though  it  is 
open  to  question  whether  there  is  a  direct  derivation  from 
any  of  the  she-wolves  with  twins  that  we  happen  to  possess. 
In  the  examples  of  the  latter  that  have  been  before  us  the 
creature's  head  is  seen  from  above,  not  in  profile  as  in 
PI.  vin,  1,  and  the  latter  head  with  its  pronounced  front 
teeth  and  long  tongue  is  a  novelty.  Nevertheless  the  deriva- 
tion from  a  vulpine  quadruped  with  head  bent  down  is  quite 
unmistakable,  and  the  hind-legs  of  PI.  vin,  1,  are  very  like 


ioo  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

those  of  the  wolf  in  PI.  vn,  6.  The  design  of  PL  vm,  I,  is  an 
excellent  one,  with  the  masses  well  distributed,  and  character- 
istic points  of  the  model  boldly  emphasized,  and  it  is  one  of 
the  best  of  the  sceat  series.  In  No.  2,  a  worn  example  in  the 
British  Museum,  where  the  collection  is  particularly  strong  in 
these  types,  the  hind-legs  have  practically  disappeared,  and  in 
Mr.  Carlyon-Britton's  coin,  No.  3,  both  sets  of  legs  have 
gone,  though  the  body  with  upright  spines  still  endures.  It 
may  be  noted  as  differentiating  these  coins  from  the  series  in 
the  lower  half  of  PL  vu  that  here  the  spines  end  in  round 
knobs  while  there,  on  PI.  vu,  they  begin  with  them.  In 
PL  vm,  4,  from  the  same  collection  as  the  last,  the  body  is 
reduced  to  a  series  of  round  pellets,  the  head  being  all  the 
time  carefully  preserved  and  even  improved.  No.  5,  another 
admirable  device  very  crisply  and  daintily  executed,  has  added 
to  the  main  type  of  No.  4  a  second  lacertine  animal  curl- 
ing round  the  first  with  a  head  of  its  own  kind,  which  is 
of  special  interest  because  it  resembles  one  on  a  piece  of 
remarkably  excellent  gold  work  noticed  later  on  (p.  311).  In 
No.  6,  a  clumsier  piece  of  work,  two  creatures  like  the  last 
but  with  heads  not  so  definitely  wolfish  are  coiled  together 
in  the  midst.  No.  8  gives  us  the  head  alone  and  may  be 
regarded  as  one  of  the  chefs-d'oeuvre  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
designer.  It  has  some  of  the  qualities  of  a  fine  early  Baby- 
lonian seal  in  its  force  and  accent,  and  is  masterly  in  composi- 
tion. The  two  devices  on  each  side  of  this  on  the  plate 
illustrate  a  tendency  which  is  to  be  observed  in  other  groups 
of  sceattas,  that  towards  a  rotary  effect.  PI.  vm  shows  us 
three  motives  treated  in  this  revolving  fashion,  one,  the  wolf- 
head  motive  with  the  protruding  tongue ;  two,  the  bird 
motive,  and  three,  a  foliage  motive  which  is  of  the  highest 
interest.  In  No.  7  three  wolf  heads,  and  in  No.  9  four, 
are  arranged  like  a  wheel  around  a  central  boss,  the  type 
of  countenance  closely  resembling  that  in  No.  1.  Between 
No.  9  and  the  following  types  there  is  a  lacuna.     A  gradual 


FOLIAGE  ORNAMENT  101 

degeneration  of  the  vulpine  whorl  to  a  mere  play  of  radiating 
lines  is  conceivable,  and  from  this  might  be  gradually  evolved 
a  bird,  somewhat  after  the  fashion  of  the  types  in  the  lower 
part  of  PI.  vn,  but  the  writer  has  not  found  any  sceattas 
which  bear  this  out.  At  any  rate  Nos.  n  and  12  are  nonde- 
script radiating  forms  with  birds'  legs  attached,  while  in  No.  10 
the  bird  form  is  more  or  less  clearly  made  out,  the  rotary 
feeling  still  being  in  evidence.  No.  10  exhibits  a  motive, 
carried  further  in  No.  14,  that  combines  with  the  bird  form 
foliage,  of  which  we  have  already  seen  examples  in  the  bird 
pecking  at  the  grapes  and  the  Cahors  trientes.  The  fifth  line 
of  PI.  viii  gives  us  in  No.  14  a  rather  elegant  bird,  built  on 
rotary  lines  and  far  less  naturalistic  than  the  bird  with  the 
grapes  of  Plates  v  and  vn,  but  agreeing  with  the  latter  in 
pecking  at  berries  or  fruit.  There  is  no  suggestion  of  the 
vine,  but  the  waving  bough  is  treated  with  a  good  deal  of 
natural  feeling.  In  Nos.  13  and  15  the  animal  form  is  absent 
and  a  foliage  scroll  occupies  the  field.  This  is  treated  in  a 
fresh  and  original  fashion  and  is  of  much  interest,  especially  in 
connection  with  the  use  of  foliage  on  carved  stones  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  period,  such  as  the  Bewcastle  Cross.  It  has  no 
resemblance  to  any  form  of  the  classical  acanthus  nor  to  the 
vine  scrolls  so  common  in  Early  Christian  art,  but  may  be 
compared  with  the  foliage  sprays  that  occur  here  and  there  in 
the  Book  of  Kells,  which  will  be  noticed  in  a  forthcoming 
volume.  In  both  cases  the  floral  scrolls  are  not  naturalistic, 
in  that  no  special  flower  or  leaf  seems  to  have  been  copied, 
but  the  grace  and  waywardness  of  growing  tendrils  have 
been  noticed  by  the  artist  and  are  rendered  with  a  dainty 
touch. 

This  quality  is  still  more  apparent  in  a  set  of  sceattas,  best 
represented  in  the  Hunterian  collection  at  Glasgow,  in  which 
foliage  is  introduced  in  a  very  artistic  manner  in  connection 
with  the  human  figure  and  quadrupeds.  No.  16  on  PI.  vm 
is  a  very  remarkable  Youlbury   coin  in  which  the  standing 


102  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

figure  in  the  boat  has  dropped  his  two  crosses  and  taken  up 
instead  a  couple  of  tall  stems  of  some  flowering  plant.  This 
makes  a  much  prettier  device  than  the  orthodox  arrangement, 
and  we  may  credit  the  Anglo-Saxon  designer  with  some  bold- 
ness in  discarding  the  well-established  Christian  symbol  in 
favour  of  a  natural  object  that  struck  his  fancy,  and  Lelewel 
might  have  quoted  the  piece  in  support  of  his  contention  that 
relics  of  paganism  cling  to  the  sceattas  all  through  their 
history.1  The  Hunterian  pieces  PI.  vm,  17,  19  and  that  in 
the  Bodleian,  No.  20,  exhibit  quadrupeds  with  which  the  same 
flowering  stems  are  effectively  composed. 

There  remain  two  questions  on  which  a  word  must  be 
said.  One  is  that  of  the  chronology  of  the  sceat  issues,  and 
the  other  is  the  question  of  the  relation  of  sceat  designs  to  the 
ornamental  work  on  other  contemporary  objects  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  manufacture.  These  two  questions  are  so  far  connected 
that  the  tomb  furniture,  which  can  in  so  many  cases  be 
approximately  dated,  might  be  expected  to  throw  a  welcome 
light  on  the  chronology  of  the  sceattas.  It  happens  however 
that  the  relation  between  the  tomb  furniture  and  the  coins  is 
such  a  distant  one  that  this  expectation  can  only  be  fulfilled  in 
the  most  partial  manner.  Points  of  contact  between  the  two 
sets  of  designs  are  as  a  matter  of  fact  very  hard  to  find,  and 
it  is  as  much  as  we  can  do  to  believe  that  the  creators  of  the 
two  sets  were  contemporaries  and  fellow-countrymen,  the  old 
idea  that  they  were  the  same  people  being  obviously  no  longer 
tenable.  For  example,  in  the  tomb  furniture  it  is  the  rarest 
thing  to  find  a  trace  of  floral  ornament,  whereas  the  sceattas 
on  the  lower  half  of  PI.  vm  exhibit  foliage  treated  with  no 
little  freedom  and  grace.  The  human  figure,  or  portions  of 
it,  can  be  just  recognized  on  some  pieces  of  decorative  work 
from  the  cemeteries  that  are  however  so  few  in  number  that 

1  'Les  sceattas  jusqu'au  dernier  jour  de  leur  existence  ne  se  sont  pas 
debarrasses  de  marques  singulieres  provenant  du  paganisme.' 


IX 

facing  p.  103 


MOTIVES  CONNECTED  WITH  SCEAT  DESIGNS 


NATURALISTIC  ANIMALS  103 

they  can  be  counted  on  the  fingers,  whereas  the  whole  form, 
quaintly  rendered  no  doubt  but  complete  and  in  reasonable 
proportions,  is  not  uncommon  on  the  coins.  The  human 
head  in  profile  or  full  face  is  the  commonest  of  all  devices  on 
the  coins,  and  here  the  difference  is  not  so  great,  for  while  the 
profile  human  head  hardly  ever  occurs  on  the  tomb  furniture 
the  full-face  head  is  rather  a  favourite  motive.  In  regard  to 
animal  ornament  a  distinction  must  be  made.  There  does 
exist  within  the  area  of  Anglo-Saxon  tomb  furniture  animal 
enrichment  of  a  normal  kind,  such  animal  ornament  as  is 
found  on  the  best  of  the  sceattas,  like  those  on  the  two 
lowest  lines  on  PI.  vni,  or.  the  bird  pecking  at  the  grapes. 
This  animal  ornament  is  distinctly  founded  on  classical 
models,  and,  save  in  the  case  of  a  very  few  exceptional  pieces 
presently  to  be  considered,  it  is  confined  to  the  earliest  Anglo- 
Saxon  period  when  Roman  works  of  art  that  would  serve  as 
examples  were  abundantly  in  evidence.  One  or  two  instances 
may  be  noticed.  PI.  ix,  2,  shows  the  outline  of  part  of  a 
leopard  stamped  on  a  bronze  pail,  PI.  cxix,  6,  in  the  British 
Museum,  found  in  the  cemetery  at  Chessell  Down  in  the 
Isle  of  Wight.  This  is  clearly  copied  from  part  of  an  animal 
frieze  such  as  is  found  on  '  Castor  ware '  pottery  and  some- 
times on  Roman  glass  vessels.  PI.  ix,  3,  may  serve  as  a 
specimen  of  work  that  is  either  debased  Roman  or  a  barbaric 
copy  of  a  Roman  original.  It  is  a  cast  bronze  medallion, 
1 1  in.  across,  found  at  Princethorpe,  Warwickshire,  probably 
with  Anglo-Saxon  relics,  and  is  part  of  the  Bloxam  collection 
in  the  Art  Museum  at  Rugby.  At  High  Down,  Sussex,  there 
was  found  in  an  Anglo-Saxon  grave  a  small  cast  bronze  head 
of  a  faun,  which  may  be  a  barbaric  copy  of  a  Roman  original. 
Another  piece  with  a  classical  lion's  head  came  to  light  at 
Harnham  Hill,  Wilts.  Later  on,  in  Chapter  x,  there  will  be 
found  figured  and  noticed  a  number  of  early  examples  of 
animal  design  of  pronounced  Roman  character. 

These  examples  date  from  before  the  end  of  V,  and  to  judge 


104  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

from  the  analogy  of  the  sceattas  they  might  have  been  the 
starting  point  of  a  development  of  animal  design  such  as  we 
find  on  the  coins.  As  a  matter  of  fact  however,  after  about 
the  year  500,  the  animal  form  in  Anglo-Saxon  tomb  furniture 
is  as  a  rule  treated  in  so  wayward  a  fashion  that  it  soon  loses 
all  resemblance  to  nature.  It  is  true  that  in  the  animal  designs 
on  the  coins  also  we  have  to  deal  with  very  arbitrary  render- 
ings of  the  quadruped,  as  in  the  '  monster '  of  the  Frisian 
reverses  or  the  wolf  forms  on  the  upper  part  of  PI.  viii,  but 
the  point  is  that  the  conventions  of  the  coin  types  are  totally 
different  from  those  we  find  on  fibulae  or  buckles.  The  dis- 
membered animal  whose  acquaintance  we  shall  make  in  con- 
nection with  the  tomb  furniture  never  presents  himself  upon 
the  sceattas,  while  conversely  the  wolves  and  birds  of  the  coins 
make  no  appearance  in  the  cemeteries.  Furthermore  the 
forms  of  geometrical  ornament  which  we  shall  find  fairly 
common  on  some  classes  of  funereal  objects,  such  for  example 
as  the  l  saucer '  fibulae,  are  not  to  be  found  in  the  monetary 
artist's  repertory,  the  only  exception  being  the  pearl  border, 
formed  by  a  succession  of  little  knobs  or  bosses.  This  occurs 
frequently  on  both  classes  of  objects,  but  it  is,  we  must  re- 
member, a  very  simple  and  widely  diffused  motive  of  enrich- 
ment that  may  be  met  with  almost  anywhere. 

The  foregoing  has  been  put  in  absolute  terms  for  about 
the  general  rule  here  enunciated  there  is  no  doubt  at  all,  the 
one  or  two  exceptions  that  may  be  adduced  being  so  few  that 
they  serve  only  to  establish  it.  To  these  exceptional  cases  of 
correspondence  between  the  two  sets  of  objects  attention  may 
now  be  given. 

It  was  noticed  in  passing  (p.  89)  that  the  step  pattern 
common  in  the  cloisons  of  Kentish  inlaid  jewels  occurs  on 
one  at  any  rate  of  the  sceattas.  The  ring  of  heads  of 
PL  vi,  13  will  be  found  as  an  occasional  motive  in  Germanic 
metal-work,  PH.  lxi  ;  G,  in  ;  the  serpent's  head  of  PI.  viii,  5, 
appears  again  on  the  exceptional  piece  PL  lvi.     PL  ix,  10,  11, 


COIN  DEVICES  ON  OTHER  OBJECTS  105 

are  worth  a  moment's  attention.  No.  10  is  a  Merovin- 
gian silver  coin  with  a  cross,  near  the  ends  of  three  arms 
of  which  there  appear  rings.  On  No.  n,  a  sceat  in  the 
Hunterian  collection,  these  rings  appear  attached  to  the  ends 
of  all  four  arms  of  a  similar  cross.  This  constitutes  a  special 
form  of  ornamented  cross  and  we  find  this  used  as  a  motive 
of  enrichment  on  a  bracteate  probably  made  in  this  country 
that  is  figured  PI.  E,  iv.  It  makes  its  appearance  also  in  another 
connection,  and  this  renders  it  necessary  to  bring  within  the 
present  survey  another  class  of  Anglo-Saxon  monuments  that 
otherwise  would  not  be  noticed  till  they  receive  regular 
treatment  in  a  subsequent  volume.  The  reference  is  to  the 
sculptured  stones  that  are  such  conspicuous  monuments  of  the 
Christian  Anglo-Saxon  period.  If  some  of  the  sceat  devices 
appear  on  the  tomb  furniture  they  may  be  detected  here  and 
there  also  on  the  stones,  though  these  are  in  most  cases  later 
in  date  than  the  sceat  series.  The  cross  with  rings  at  the  end 
of  the  arms  is  a  case  in  point  for  this  is  found  occasionally 
on  stones  in  the  north.  PI.  ix,  5,  shows  a  wolf's  head  on 
a  X  stone  in  Stanwick  Church,  Yorkshire,  that  perpetuates 
the  type  of  the  wolves'  heads  on  the  upper  part  of  PI.  vin. 
One  or  two  of  the  exceptional  pieces  of  tomb  furniture 
signalized  above  seem  to  be  connected  alike  with  the  sceat 
coins  and  with  the  earliest  of  the  carved  stones,  and  these 
must  obtain  their  share  of  notice. 

They  are  Nos.  11,  12,  on  PL  v,  and  1,  4,  6,  7,  8,  on 
PL  ix.  PL  ix,  1,  4,  in  the  Cambridge  Museum,  of  cast 
bronze  gilded,  are  called  £  hinged  handles '  and  were  found 
at  Wangford  and  Lakenheath  in  Suffolk,  though  there  is 
unfortunately  no  record  of  the  circumstances  of  their  dis- 
covery. On  both  parts  of  No.  1  there  are  birds  with  long 
ostrich-like  necks  and  broad  wings  that  readily  offer  them- 
selves for  comparison  with  some  of  the  birds  on  the  sceattas. 
PL  vin,  10,  14,  for  example  show  the  creature  with  the  two 
legs,  wing,  tail,  and  upright  neck  and  open  beak  of  the  birds 


io6  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

of  the  hinged  handle,  PI.  ix,  I,  and  there  may  be  brought 
into  comparison  also  PI.  v,  2,  6,  where  similar  creatures  are 
represented.  On  another  piece  of  tomb  furniture  figured 
PI.  ix,  7,  there  is  a  similar  bird.  This  is  a  cast  bronze 
pendant  ornament  that  was  found  at  Saxonbury,  outside 
Lewes,  Sussex,  and  is  now  in  the  Museum  there.  The 
shape  of  the  plate  is  that  of  a  square  superimposed  on  a 
quatrefoil,  and  the  right-hand  upper  corner  is  mutilated  so 
that  the  fashion  of  the  bird's  head  and  neck  cannot  be  clearly 
made  out.1  Legs,  tail,  and  wing  are  however  quite  sufficiently 
distinct.  This  piece  may  be  dated  in  VI.  PI.  ix,  8,  is  part 
of  the  bronze  mounting  of  a  bucket  from  Bidford,  Warwick- 
shire, in  the  form  of  a  quadruped,  cut  out  in  thin  sheet 
bronze.  It  is  quite  an  exceptional  piece,  and  the  ornamental 
treatment  of  the  surface  is  of  a  kind  suggesting  an  early 
date. 

On  the  other  hand  the  remarkable  object,  PI.  v,  II,  was 
discovered  in  association  with  other  items  of  a  rather  advanced 
date.  It  is  an  embossed  plate  of  thin  silver  that  formed  the 
face  of  a  brooch  of  the  '  applied '  type  (p.  275),  if  in.  across, 
and  is  published  in  Archaeologia,  lxiii,  191.  It  was  found 
in  St.  John's  College  cricket  ground  at  Cambridge,  and  is 
now  in  the  Museum  there.  For  the  present  purpose  we  are 
only  concerned  with  the  frieze  of  quadrupeds  which  are 
treated  with  a  naturalism  quite  unprecedented  on  tomb 
furniture  of  the  period,  that  may  be  early  VII.  In  detail  it  is 
not  like  any  of  the  animals  on  the  sceattas,  but  is  on  about 
the  same  grade  of  art  as  some  of  the  animals  in  the  lower  part 
of  PL  viii,  and  has  been  adduced  here  for  the  sake  of  com- 
parison. 

The  very  interesting  piece,  PL  ix,  6,  exhibits  a  union  of 
animal  and  foliage  motives  that  makes  it  of  especial  value  for 

1  For  a  careful  report  on  the  piece  the  writer  has  to  thank  Mr  F. 
Bentham  Stevens,  Honorary  Curator  of  the  Museum  at  Lewes,  who  kindly 
examined  it  on  his  behalf. 


ANGLO-SAXON  LEAF  ORNAMENT  107 

comparison  with  the  coins.  It  came  to  light  in  a  Jutish  grave 
at  Gilton,  Kent,  and  was  published  in  Inventorium  Sepulchrale, 
pi.  viii,  7,  and  p.  16.  The  material  is  silver,  once  heavily 
gilded,  and  it  appears  to  be  the  half  of  a  clasp.  It  is  1  in. 
long.  The  ornament  is  in  open  work,  and  gives  us  a  fantastic 
creature  with  two  forelegs  and  a  curling  tail  that  divides  into 
three,  each  branch  ending  with  what  looks  like  a  flower  bud. 
In  the  case  of  this  piece  we  have  Faussett's  note  of  the  objects 
found  with  it,  and  these  give  indications  of  a  late  date  that 
would  however  almost  certainly  fall  within  VII.  It  is  dis- 
cussed in  a  subsequent  chapter  in  association  with  clasps 
(p.  362),  and  is  noticed  here  and  (p.  in)  on  account  of  its 
connection  both  with  the  coins  and  with  the  early  carved 
stones.  The  terminations  of  the  tripartite  tail  are  curiously 
like  what  we  find  on  PL  viii,  19,  while  the  creature  itself 
occurs  almost  in  propria  persona  on  the  eastern  face  of  the 
Bewcastle  Cross,  shown  PL  ix,  9. 

The  two  objects,  Pll.  v,  12  ;  ix,  4,  present  to  us  the  most 
marked  examples  of  a  floral  motive  that  the  tomb  furniture  as 
a  whole  can  furnish.  The  leaf  form  in  both  cases  is  unmis- 
takable, but  it  is  very  noteworthy  that  the  structure  of  the  leaf 
and  its  relation  to  the  stem  are  not  understood,  and  it  is  only 
a  blundered  presentment,  the  production  of  a  designer  who 
was  trying  to  copy  a  bit  of  Roman  foliage  ornament  without 
understanding  it.  PL  v,  12,  was  found  at  Royston  Heath, 
not  far  from  Cambridge,  in  company  with  a  skeleton,  but  that 
is  all  the  information  available.  It  is  a  bronze  buckle,  1^  in. 
across,  and  still  has  in  it  part  of  the  leathern  strap  which  it 
fastened.  The  bow  ends  on  the  side  where  the  tongue  is 
hinged  in  two  animals'  heads,  and  the  exposed  surface  of  the 
bow  is  decorated  with  what  is  meant  to  be  a  floral  scroll  with 
leaves  given  off"  alternately  on  the  two  sides  of  an  undulating 
stem.  PL  ix,  4,  shows  a  single  leaf,  and  it  is  noteworthy  that 
Bernhard  Salin  in  his  Thierornamentik,  fig.  408,  gives  a  draw- 
ing of  a  bronze  fragment  at  Hanover  with  exactly  the  same 


108  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

pattern  upon  it,  and  considers  the  piece  of  early  date,  that  is 
about  V.  Foliage  forms  of  this  kind  do  not  show  themselves 
on  the  sceattas,  but  a  leaf  of  the  same  shape  makes  its  appear- 
ance on  the  Bewcastle  Cross,  PL  ix,  9,  where  we  see  it  under 
and  to  the  right  of  the  creature  resembling  PL  ix,  6,  in  which 
we  have  already  noticed  traits  that  connect  it  on  the  other  side 
with  the  sceattas  at  the  bottom  of  PI.  viii. 

These  details  may  seem  of  somewhat  trivial  importance, 
but  the  fact  is  that  there  is  so  little  evidence  for  the  chronology 
alike  of  the  sceattas  and  of  the  carved  stones  that  any  indica- 
tions even  of  an  indirect  kind  are  of  value.  Employing  now 
the  scanty  evidence  to  be  derived  from  the  side  of  tomb 
furniture  as  well  as  arguments  drawn  from  the  sceat  designs 
themselves  and  the  circumstances  of  the  discoveries  of  the 
coins,  we  may  essay  a  chronological  distribution  of  some  of 
the  principal  types  within  the  general  limits  of  the  sceat 
period. 

Comparatively  few  sceattas  have  been  found  in  tombs 
where  associated  objects  might  afford  indications  of  date,  or 
have  appeared  anywhere  in  conjunction  with  datable  objects 
such  as  foreign  coins  of  known  origin.  The  find  of  sceattas 
in  one  of  the  recently  explored  graves  at  Broadstairs,  Kent,  is 
as  important  chronologically  as  any  discovery  of  the  kind,  for 
the  Broadstairs  cemetery  is  on  the  whole  an  early  one  though 
approaching  600  a.d.  quite  as  near  as  500  a.d.,  a  date  which 
has  been  suggested  for  it.  For  one  thing  the  clobed'  glass 
vessel  which  will  be  found  figured  later,  PI.  cxxiii,  1  (p.  483), 
probably  dates  at  the  earliest  from  the  latter  part  of  VI.  Of 
the  eight  sceattas  in  question  half  had  the  '  standard  '  reverse, 
half  that  in  which  a  bird  hovers  over  a  cross,  PL  iv,  12,  the 
obverses  being  in  all  cases  fairly  executed  heads.  For  reasons 
given  above  (p.  84)  the  '  standard'  coins  may  date  in  VI  while 
the  bird  and  cross  is  evidence  of  a  date  after  600  a.d.  The 
indications  of  an  early  date,  even  within  VI,  for  the  Broad- 
stairs coins  is  a  little  discounted  by  the  fact   that  some  other 


DATING  OF  THE  SCEATTAS  109 

sceattas  with  these  self-same  types  came  to  light  in  1843  in 
association  with  a  distinctively  Christian  object,  at  earliest  of 
the  first  half  of  VII.  The  place  was  Breach  Down,  Kent,  and 
the  object  the  pin  for  the  hair  with  head  in  the  form  of  a 
cross,  shown  PL  x,  5  (p.  1 1 5).  At  Ozengell,  Thanet,  a  cemetery 
that  yielded  up  objects  of  early  date,  three  sceattas  with  the 
bird  on  the  cross  were  found,  but  the  particular  grave  that 
furnished  them  is  not  known.  The  cemetery,  though  an 
early  one,  produced  an  imitated  coin  of  Justinian  that  cannot 
be  earlier  than  the  last  part  of  VI.  Two  coins,  found  in  a 
grave,  no.  ccxxvi,  at  Sarre  that  contained  only  a  broken 
knife,  can  be  accurately  dated  by  the  occurrence  on  them  of 
the  name  '  Pada,'  indicating,  as  we  have  seen  (p.  80),  a  date 
about  the  middle  of  VII.  A  sceat  with  the  type  of  two 
figures  holding  between  them  a  cross,  like  PL  iv,  14,  was 
found  at  Saxby,  Leicestershire,  in  a  cemetery  of  the  end  of 
VI  or  early  part  of  VII. 

Apart  from  a  very  few  *  Fundberichte  '  such  as  these  just 
given,  and  of  course  the  inscribed  and  dated  '  iEthelred '  and 
*  Pada '  coins,  we  are  compelled  to  use  for  the  dating  of  the 
sceattas  either  the  internal  evidence  of  their  designs  or  else 
such  indirect  indications  as  those  derived  from  comparisons 
with  the  tomb  furniture.  The  profile  head  and  standard 
type  may  be  accepted  as  early,  the  last  half  of  VI,  and  a 
corresponding  nearness  to  Roman  or  Early  Christian  proto- 
types may  be  used  in  favour  of  an  equally  early  date  for  the 
wolf  with  twins  and  bird  and  grapes.  Charles  Roach  Smith 
published  two  sceattas  found  at  Richborough,1  one  of  which  is 
of  this  type  the  other  of  the  '  standard '  type,  but  unfortun- 
ately he  does  not  tell  us  whether  or  not  they  were  found 
together.  If  we  may  date  the  wolf  and  twins  in  the  latter 
part  of  VI  we  have  a  long  period  of  time  during  which, 
throughout  VII,  the  gradual  transformations  of  the  type  that 
have  been  followed  (p.  94  f.)  can  have  worked  themselves  out. 
1   Richborough,  Re  culver  and  Lymne,  Lond.,  1850,  p.  157. 


no  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

The  introduction  of  the  interlacing  motive  in  the  long  hair  of 
the  bust  on  the  obverse  of  many  of  the  coins  with  degraded 
wolf  types  on  the  other  side,  as  PI.  viii,  i,  4,  is  a  chrono- 
logical indication,  for  this  motive  does  not  appear  in  the  tomb 
furniture  till  VII  and  greatly  flourishes  as  time  goes  on.  The 
evolution  of  the  'whorl'  motive,  PI.  vm,  7,  9,  etc.,  carries 
us  on  through  VII.  It  may  be  conjectured  that  the  whorl 
motive  on  the  coins  is  due  to  the  same  revival  of  a  Late-Celtic 
design  which  produced  in  VII  those  extraordinary  ' scutcheons  ' 
of  bronze  bowls  ornamented  with  flamboyant  Celtic  scrolls 
of  which  there  is  question  in  a  later  chapter  (p.  475  f.),  see 
PL  cxix.  The  whorl  motive  does  not  occur  in  the  designs  of 
early  Teutonic  coins  on  the  Continent  and  may  be  due  in  our 
own  country  to  the  cause  just  mentioned.  The  whorl  of  four 
wolves'  heads  is  connected,  PL  viii,  9,  with  the  female  centaur 
type  with  which  it  is  always  conjoined,  and  we  have  seen 
reason  to  regard  the  female  centaur  in  spite  of  its  classicism 
as  not  an  early  type,  but  one  inspired  by  the  coming  Caro- 
lingian  renaissance,  like  the  wolf  and  twins  of  iEthelberht, 
PL  viii,  18  (p.  94).  It  would  in  this  case  fall  within  VIII. 
A  similar  whorl  of  three  wolves'  heads,  PL  vm,  7,  carries 
with  it  on  its  reverse  the  rosette  motive  in  a  cruciform 
scheme,  which  is  thus  established  as  late.  A  similar  rosette 
device  forms  the  reverse  of  the  whorl-like  bird  PI.  viii,  11, 
while  Nos.  10  and  12,  obviously  related  to  No.  11,  have 
on  their  other  sides  the  standing  figure  with  two  crosses 
in  the  boat,  a  type  that  is  thereby  shown  to  occur  at  a  com- 
paratively advanced  epoch.  This  figure  in  the  boat  is  rather 
closely  associated  with  the  head  with  the  inscription  'Londonia,' 
PL  iv,  5,  7,  8,  and  the  'Londonia'  coins  are  not  likely  to  be 
very  early,  see  the  reverse  of  PI.  iv,  6.  In  spite  of  his  crosses 
the  figure  in  the  boat  is  far  more  likely  to  be  a  merchant  than 
a  missionary,  and  we  may  take  it  that  his  conjunction  with  the 
'  Londonia '  inscription  testifies  to  the  activity  of  London 
commerce  when  people  were  resorting  thither  as  Bede  tells  us, 


CHRONOLOGICAL  INDICATIONS  in 

•  by  sea  and  land.'  This  same  standing  figure  in  PI.  vm,  16, 
has  we  have  seen  dropped  his  crosses  and  assumed  instead  two 
flowering  stems,  and  this  brings  with  it  the  foliage  motive  to 
the  use  of  which  we  owe  the  charming  designs  on  the  lower 
part  of  PI.  vm,  while  the  foliage  motive  again  is  inseparably- 
connected  with  the  excellent  animal  designs  illustrated  in  the 
same  place. 

We  see  accordingly  various  decorative  motives  joining 
hands  as  it  were  and  drawing  each  other  in  till  they  gather 
together  at  an  epoch  that  may  be  set  down  as  the  last  half  of 
VII,  from  which  time  onwards  till  the  sceat  issue  ceases  we 
may  regard  them  as  flourishing.  Of  the  various  pieces  of 
tomb  furniture  on  PH.  v  and  ix  there  is  really  only  one  that 
can  give  us  direct  support  for  this  chronological  argument, 
the  others  standing  as  it  were  neutral.  This  piece  is  the  clasp 
in  pierced  work,  PI.  ix,  6.  On  tomb-furniture  evidence  the 
piece  would  find  its  habitat  in  VII  and  probably  in  the  last 
part  of  VII.  It  was  found  with  a  coin  imitated  from  one 
of  Justinian  (527-565  a.d.),  the  piece  showing  considerable 
evidence  of  usage,  and  the  open  work  technique  suggests  a 
date  decidedly  advanced.  The  floral  terminations  to  the 
creature's  tail  point  to  the  same  period,  and  the  appearance  of 
its  counterpart  on  the  Bewcastle  Cross  would  agree  with  this, 
if  the  Cross  be  rightly  dated  VII.  The  connection  with  coins 
or  stones  of  the  other  pieces,  PI.  v,  II,  12,  and  PI.  ix,  1,  4, 
7,  8,  is  not  quite  so  clear.  The  quadrupeds  PI.  v,  11,  and 
PI.  ix,  8,  have  no  great  significance  for  the  purpose.  On  the 
probable  date  of  PI.  v,  12,  and  PI.  ix,  1,  4,  a  word  may  be 
said.  The  heads  on  the  buckle  bow,  its  leafage,  and  the  single 
leaf  on  PI.  ix,  4,  probably  have  a  Roman  connection  and  date 
before  500  a.d.  The  appearance  of  the  same  leaf  on  the 
Bewcastle  Cross  so  long  afterwards  may  be  easily  explained. 
The  Cross,  whatever  its  actual  date,  is  certainly  one  of  the 
earliest  examples  of  stone  carving  of  the  kind  in  the  period, 
and  the  sculptor  takes  the  Roman  vine  scroll  for  his  model 


ii2  EARLY  ANGLO-SAXON  COINAGE 

just  as  it  had  been  taken  at  an  earlier  date  by  the  maker  of 
the  cast  bronze  buckle  and  hinged  handle.  The  date,  and  special 
connection  with  sceat  designs,  of  the  birds  on  PL  ix,  i  and  7 
are  not  easy  to  fix,  but  the  parallelism  in  the  work  is  undoubted, 
and  in  the  case  of  a  few  objects  of  the  kind  the  old  theory 
that  the  moneyer  and  the  metal  worker  were  one  and  the  same 
still  has  its  plausibility. 

In  leaving  now  the  subject  of  the  sceat  coin  types  we  may 
notice  in  a  word  of  summary,  first,  the  place  they  hold  in  the 
general  history  of  Anglo-Saxon  art,  and,  second,  their  aesthetic 
value.  As  regards  the  former,  as  the  sceattas  extend  in  point 
of  duration  not  only  through  VII  but  through  a  great  part  of 
VIII  they  provide  us  with  specimens  of  our  native  art  at  a 
period  when  datable  examples  are  very  hard  to  find.  We  shall 
see  reason  for  believing  (p.  173)  that  the  use  of  the  pagan 
cemeteries,  and  with  it  the  interment  and  consequent  preserva- 
tion of  tomb  furniture,  ceases  before  the  beginning  of  VIII,1 
though  on  the  Continent  this  use  may  have  lasted  on  till  a 
later  epoch.  Hence  the  last  part  of  VII  and  VIII  are  barely, 
if  at  all,  represented  in  tomb  furniture,  and  it  is  of  all  the  more 
importance  to  note  that  throughout  this  period  the  art  of  the 
moneyer  flourished  in  full  vigour.  The  sceattas  moreover 
represent  the  art  of  the  southern  districts  of  the  country, 
whereas  what  examples  we  have  of  the  productions  of  the 
time  in  MS.  illuminations,  carvings,  etc.,  belong  to  North- 
umbria.  Were  there  no  sceattas  we  should  not  possess  any 
documents  to  give  us  an  idea  of  VIII  art  in  the  regions  of  the 
country  where  in  VI  and  VII  the  crafts  connected  with  objects 
of  tomb  furniture  had  been  specially  active. 

On  the  aesthetic  question  the  text  for  a  few  concluding 
words  may  be  taken  from  the  sentences  in  which  Mr.  Keary 
sums  up  the  points  of  interest  in  our  Anglo-Saxon  coinage  in 

1  In  a  few  exceptional  cases  this  use  may  have  extended  into  VIII.  The 
King's  Road  cemetery  at  Reading,  Berks,  is  a  case  in  point,  and  so  is  Saffron 
Walden,  Essex. 


AN  AESTHETIC  ESTIMATE  113 

the  conclusion  of  his  Introduction  to  the  second  volume  of 
the  British  Museum  Catalogue  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  series.  In 
the  sceat  series,  he  says,  c  we  have  a  number  and  variety  of 
designs  which  in  proportion  to  the  extent  of  the  issue  is 
perhaps  without  precedent  in  any  other  coinage  of  the  world. 
The  designs  on  the  sceattas  are  not  themselves  for  the  most 
part  artistically  beautiful,  but  in  any  history  of  the  develop- 
ment of  ornament  they  ought  to  take  a  conspicuous  place. 
They  present  .  .  .  some  striking  examples  of  the  degradation 
of  types,  and,  through  degradation,  of  the  evolution  of  fresh 
types.'  The  points  here  indicated  have  been  illustrated  in 
some  detail  on  the  plates,  1  to  vin,  on  which  appear  nearly 
two  hundred  coin  devices.  To  some  of  these  the  quality  of 
beauty  cannot  reasonably  be  denied.  In  numismatic  history 
as  a  whole,  beauty  in  the  highest  sense  is  perhaps  only  repre- 
sented in  the  coins  of  the  classic  and  the  Gothic  periods  and 
in  some  Renaissance  pieces,  but  beauty  that  is  a  matter  more 
of  feeling  and  suggestion  than  of  perfection  of  form  certainly 
belongs  to  sceattas  such  as  PI.  iv,  15,  PI.  vn,  5,  PI.  vin,  14, 
15,  16,  19,  or  the  bird  pecking  at  the  grapes  on  PI.  v.  The 
artistic  merit  of  good  disposition  of  masses  and  composition  of 
line  belongs  to  very  many  of  the  designs  that  perhaps  strike 
us  first  by  their  quaintness.  PI.  vin  shows  good  examples  of 
this.  The  highest  merit  of  the  coins  however  resides  in  the 
freshness  and  variety  of  the  devices,  which  represent  the 
Anglo-Saxon  artist  of  VII  in  a  most  favourable  light,  and  make 
us  long  for  a  little  of  his  animation  and  fancy  to  enliven  the 
inane  and  spiritless  devices  of  our  modern  British  coins  and 
postage  stamps.  The  execution  of  the  sceat  designs  we  may 
characterize  if  we  will  as  '  rude,'  but  this  is  really  a  term  of 
praise  when  we  compare  the  boldness  and  accent  in  their 
handling  with  the  thin  machine-like  regularity  of  the  orthodox 
productions  of  to-day. 


in 


CHAPTER   III 

THE   ANGLO-SAXON   CEMETERY   OF   THE   PAGAN   PERIOD 

The  tombs  that  have  furnished  practically  all  the  objects,  save 
the  coins,  noticed  in  these  chapters  are  grouped  in  cemeteries 
which  served  the  needs  of  different  bodies  of  Teutonic  settlers. 
With  these  cemeteries  various  topics  connect  themselves,  of 
which  the  following  are  the  most  important  : — (1)  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  cemetery  in  VI  and  to-day  ;  its  supersession  by  the 
churchyard  and  consequent  disappearance  from  view  ;  its  re- 
discovery and  exploration  in  mediaeval  and  more  modern 
times  :  (II)  the  number  and  extent  of  the  cemeteries :  (III) 
the  location  of  the  cemeteries  in  relation  to  the  distribution  of 
the  Teutonic  population,  the  natural  features  of  the  country, 
and  the  social  and  sepulchral  arrangements  of  the  earlier  in- 
habitants whom  the  invaders  dispossessed  :  (IV)  the  treatment 
of  the  body  before  burial,  and  the  disposal  of  it  or  its  ashes  in 
the  receptacle  prepared  for  it :  (V)  the  arrangement  and  the 
forms  of  the  graves  :  (VI)  orientation  and  tomb  furniture  : 
(VII)  the  mark  or  monument,  if  any,  that  indicated  at  the 
time  and  to  posterity  the  place  of  interment :  (VIII)  the  indica- 
tions, if  any,  in  connection  with  the  above  of  social  customs, 
or  of  class  or  other  distinctions  among  the  interred. 

I.  It  is  a  curious  reflection  that  there  are  two  periods  in 
the  history  of  this  country  at  which  the  pagan  Anglo-Saxon 
cemetery  has  been  a  conspicuous  monumental  or  social  fact, 
and  these  periods  are  separated  by  about  a  thousand  years. 
From  the  first  settlement  down  to  about  700  a.d.  these 
cemeteries  were  in  use  and  honour,  but  from  that  date  till 

114 


X 

facing  p.  1 1 5 


CHRISTIAN  OBJECTS  IN  CEMETERIES 


115 


about  1700  they  passed  not  only  out  of  use  but  out  of 
memory  almost  as  completely  as  did  the  Roman  catacombs, 
while  within  the  last  century  and  a  half  they  have  resumed  a 
place  of  importance  among  our  national  institutions.  The 
cause  of  their  passing  out  of  use  was  the  establishment  of  the 
churchyard,  within  which,  if  not  within  the  church  itself,  the 
clergy  gradually  brought  the  faithful  to  lay  their  dead.  The 
early  history  of  the  churchyard  is  obscure  and  nothing  needs 
here  to  be  added  to  what  was  written  in  the  first  volume  of 
this  work,1  where  it  was  noticed  that  the  first  Christian  bury- 
ing grounds  were  apparently  attached  to  monastic  churches 
and  that  these  may  have  been  used  for  the  burial  of  faithful 
persons  not  in  monastic  orders.  It  was  only  gradually  that 
the  temenos  or  enclosed  area  around  the  country  church  was 
made  the  effective  place  of  burial  for  the  local  population,  and 
it  would  be  very  interesting  to  know  exactly  when  and  under 
what  conditions  this  change  worked  itself  out.  Some  archaeo- 
logical evidence  will  be  adduced  later  on  (p.  172  f.)  tending  to 
show  that  this  change  was  accomplished  sooner  in  this  country 
than  on  the  Continent,  for  late  objects  are  less  often  found  in 
our  own  non-ecclesiastical  ceme- 
teries than  in  foreign  ones. 

Pagan  cemeteries  were  cer- 
tainly in  use  even  for  the  burial  of 
Christians  during  VII.  One  or  two 
examples  that  bear  on  this  may  here 
be  introduced.  What  are  at  first 
sight  the  most  striking  cases  occur 
at  Strood  by  Rochester  in  Kent 
and  at  Long  Wittenham,  Berks,  at 
both  of  which  places  were  found 
bronze  plates,  that  had  mounted 
or  covered,  in  the  one  case  a  drinking  horn,  in  the  other  a  pail 
or  stoup,  and  on  which  figure  subjects  from  scripture  had  been 

1  The  Arts  in  Early  England,  1,  256  f. 


Fig.  1. — Outline  of  Design  on 
the  Strood  Mount. 


n6      THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

represented  in  repousse  work  in  relief.  The  Strood  piece  is 
shown  PL  x,  i,  and  the  design  which  is  repeated  six  times 
round  the  mouth  of  the  horn  is  given  more  clearly  in  Fig.  i } 
The  subject  is  probably  Christ  as  Teacher.  This  is  un- 
doubtedly Christian,  but  whether  the  owner  of  it  was  an 
adherent  of  the  new  faith  is  another  question.  It  was  found 
in  the  grave  of  a  warrior  buried  with  sword,  spear,  shield 
and  knife  on  a  site  contiguous  with  the  old  Roman  cemetery 
that  lay  along  the  course  of  the  Watling  Street  on  the 
western  side  of  the  Medway  opposite  Strood  church.  Now 
Rochester  received  a  Christian  church  at  the  very  beginning 
of  VII,2  and  as  this  was  monastic  it  may  have  supplied  grave- 
yard accommodation  for  the  faithful,8  yet  we  find  a  body 
buried  with  distinctly  Christian  grave  furniture  close  to  the 
pagan  Roman  cemetery  across  the  river.  It  is  quite  possible 
that  as  the  weapons  suggest  rather  an  early  date  for  the  inter- 
ment the  warrior  was  not  himself  a  Christian  and  had  acquired 
the  bronze-mounted  horn  by  foray  or  traffic  from  France. 
Bronze  plates  of  a  similar  kind  with  Christian  figure  subjects 
on  them  may  be  seen  in  the  Museum  at  Worms  and  were 
found  also  at  Vermand  in  northern  France.4 

In  the  last  case  an  early  date,  not  later  than  400  a.d.,  is 
indicated  by  the  nature  of  the  cemetery,  and  the  piece  in 
question  must  be  the  work  not  of  a  Frank  but  of  a  Christian 
Gallo-Roman  craftsman.  This  is  rendered  practically  certain 
by  the  fact  that  at  Vermand  and  other  cemeteries  of  the  same 
class  embossed  bronze  plates  of  the  same  kind  have  been  found 
with  figure  subjects  from  classical  mythology,  that  obviously 
proceed  from  Gallo-Roman  workshops.5     A  similar  proven- 

1  From  Collectanea  Antiqua,  11,  pi.  xxxvi. 

2  The  Arts  in  Early  England,  11,  119. 

3  ibid.,  1,  258. 

4  Pilloy,  Etudes,  it,  pi.  13  and  p.  216.     For  the  important  Franco-Roman 
cemetery  at  Vermand  see  postea  (p.  549  f.). 

5  ibid.,  1,  169,  176  ;  11,  pi.  12. 


SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE  CROSS  117 

ance  may  be  confidently  assumed  for  the  examples  at  Strood 
and  Long  Wittenham,  and  the  Strood  warrior  may  not  have 
been  a  Jute  of  Kent  but  one  of  the  raiders  of  the  valleys  of 
the  Thames  and  its  tributaries,  about  whom  there  is  question 
in  a  later  chapter.  The  Long  Wittenham  stoup  was  found  in 
the  grave  of  a  boy  together  with  a  beaten  bronze  bowl  of  a 
kind  represented  at  Croydon  in  a  probably  pagan  grave,  and 
the  occupants  of  the  Long  Wittenham  graves  may  belong  to 
the  same  section  of  the  invaders  as  the  warrior  buried  at 
Strood.  The  Wilton  pendant  discovered  in  Norfolk1  is 
certainly  Christian  though  it  is  not  proved  that  it  came  from 
a  grave.  On  the  other  hand  in  the  Kentish  cemeteries  at 
Kingston  and  Chartham  Down,  Kent,  and  in  a  barrow  on 
Winster  Moor,  Derbyshire,2  crosses  obviously  and  professedly 
Christian  and  worn  as  pendants  came  to  light,  PI.  x,  2,  2,  3,  4. 
On  Breach  Down,  Kent,  there  was  found  a  pin  for  the  hair, 
now  in  the  British  Museum,  PI.  x,  5,  the  head  of  which  is  a 
cross  in  the  Christian  form.  In  the  Gibbs  collection  from 
Faversham,  now  in  the  British  Museum,  two  bronze  mounts 
for  bowls,  PI.  x,  6,  6,  of  a  kind  discussed  later  on  (p.  474), 
show  the  motive  of  the  Latin  cross  standing  between  two 
fantastic  creatures,  that  occurs  on  Burgundian  buckles  where 
its  derivation  can  be  traced  from  Daniel  between  two  lions.3 

The  above  are  all  avowedly  and  beyond  all  question 
Christian,  but  there  are  other  appearances  about  which  we  • 
cannot  be  so  certain.  It  is  not  infrequent  to  find  the  patterns 
on  inlaid  jewels  and  bracteate-like  pendants  in  gold  worked 
into  a  cruciform  shape,  but  these  are  not  always  convincing, 
for  the  arrangement  of  a  design  in  fours  may  very  well  pro- 
duce this  appearance  without  any  religious  intent,  and  the 
well-known  shape  of  the  equal-armed  cross,  in  which  the  arms 

1  Norfolk  Archaeology,  in,  375,  see  Chapter  x  (p.  510). 

2  Catalogue  of  Sheffield  Museum,  1899,  p.  222. 

3  M.  Besson,  V  Art  Barbare  dans  P  Ancien  Diocese  de  Lausanne,  Lausanne, 
1909,  p.  64  f.     (Cycle  des  monstres  affrontes.) 


n8       THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

increase  in  width  as  they  diverge,  will  necessarily  form  itself 
if  any  one  divide  a  round  disc  like  a  pendant  into  eight 
spaces  by  radiating  lines.  There  is  no  reason 
to  suspect  the  Roman  enamelled  brooch  at 
Chesters,  Fig.  2,  of  Christian  leanings  because 
the  spaces  are  so  partitioned.  It  is  an  acci- 
dent that  they  are  here  divided  into  fours 
while  on  the  similar  brooch  shown  PL  e,  i 

FIG.  2. Part  of  a     (p«  5X9)  tne  urut  IS  nve-     As  we  saw  in  the 

Roman  Brooch.  case  of  the  sceat  coins  a  pagan  Saxon  work- 
man might  copy  the  cross  merely  as  a  decorative  or  as  a  prophy- 
lactic motive  (p.  73)  from  some  Gallo-Roman  or  Merovingian 
Christian  piece.  The  cross  appears  on  the  two  inlaid  pendants, 
PL  xi,  1,  2,  of  which  the  first,  at  Liverpool,  comes  from 
Sibertswold,  Kent,  and  the  other,  No.  2,  from  a  barrow  at 
Uncelby,  Yorks  (in  York  Museum).  These  are  very  doubt- 
fully Christian.  On  the  other  hand  the  damaged  pendant 
from  Sibertswold,  Kent,  PL  x,  7,  and  that  from  Suffolk  in 
Mr.  S.  Fenton's  collection,  PL  xi,  5,  give  the  cross  in  a  pro- 
nounced form  that  may  well  be  Christian.  Unmistakably 
Christian  is  a  pewter  chalice  found  in  a  grave  in  the  King's 
Road  cemetery  at  Reading.  This  cemetery  is  apparently  a 
late  one  as  no  arms  were  found,  and  its  use  is  conjectured  to 
have  extended  to  the  exceptionally  late  date  of  about  the 
middle  of  VIII.  The  chalice,  PL  xi,  3,  which  approaches  the 
Romanesque  form  is  not  only  Christian  but  sacerdotal,  and  its 
appearance  in  a  cemetery  not  attached  to  any  church  is  signi- 
ficant. It  may  be  held  attested  as  a  local  product  through 
the  discovery  in  the  same  cemetery  of  another  object  in  pewter, 
this  time  a  large  fibula.  The  use  of  pewter  by  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  craftsman  need  not  surprise  us,  as  the  Romans  freely 
employed  the  material. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  in  VII  and  probably  in 

exceptional  cases  in  the  first  part  of  VIII  there  was  in  the  use 
of  cemeteries  an  overlap,   Christians  still  continuing  to  be 


EARLY  FINDS  IN  CHURCHYARDS  119 

buried  even  with  the  insignia  of  their  religion  in  the  pagan 
cemeteries  though  country  churchyards  were  ready  to  offer 
them  accommodation.  It  is  a  question  whether  or  to  what 
extent  the  converse  holds  good  and  early  burials  in  the  church- 
yards were  accompanied  by  the  '  Beigaben '  customary  in 
pagan  interments.  Thus  it  is  stated  on  the  excellent  authority 
of  Charles  Roach  Smith  that  in  the  burying  ground  attached 
to  the  very  ancient  church  of  St.  Martin  outside  Canterbury 
were  found  a  garnet  inlaid  pendant,  a  Roman  gem,  and  some 
gold  coins  furnished  with  attachments  for  suspension,  probably 
the  necklet  of  an  Anglo-Saxon  lady  of  distinction.1  It  is  true 
that  these  objects  are  sometimes  described  as  having  been 
found  '  near  St.  Augustine's,  Canterbury,'  but  the  statements 
of  Roach  Smith  are  very  explicit,  and  in  the  Numismatic 
Chronicle  he  comments  on  the  discovery  of  the  pendants  in 
the  early  burial  ground,  where  he  thinks  they  may  have  been 
interred  as  part  of  the  belongings  of  one  of  Queen  Berchta's 
ladies  of  honour.  This  seems  a  genuine  case  of  pagan 
'  Beigaben '  in  a  grave  in  a  consecrated  churchyard.  Other 
instances  are  more  doubtful.  For  example,  in  the  beautiful 
churchyard  at  Minster  in  Thanet,  a  site  full  of  memories  of 
early  Saxon  Christianity,  about  1786,  parts  of  a  skeleton  were 
found  at  a  depth  of  7  ft.  and  by  the  skull  was  a  ribbed  glass 
vessel  in  the  form  of  a  bell.2  In  1853  a  tumbler  of  green 
glass  together  with  a  portion  of  a  skull  are  said  to  have  been 
found  in  a  churchyard  at  Faversham.3  At  Wing  and  at 
Mentmore,  Bucks,  skeletons,  some  of  which  were  unmistak- 
ably Saxon,  were  found  quite  close  to  the  churchyards,4  and 
within  the  churchyard  at  Wyre  Piddle,  Worcestershire, 
skeletons  were  found  accompanied  by  iron  shield  bosses  of 

1  Coll.  Ant.,  1,  176  ;  Num.  Cbron.,  1st  Ser.,  vn,  p.  187,  and  Proceedings, 
p.  28.     The  coins  are  figured  later  on,  PI.  cvii,  3  (p.  449). 

2  Archaeologia,  vm,  449. 

3  V.C.H.,  Kent,  1,  385  ;  Ass.,  xm,  313. 

4  Archaeologia,  xxxv,  379  f. 


120  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

Anglo-Saxon  type.1  The  coffined  skeleton,  a  part  of  which 
is  shown  PI.  xviri,  2  (p.  177),  was  an  intrusive  burial  in  a 
Bronze  Age  tumulus  in  the  churchyard  of  Ogbourne  St. 
Andrew,  Wilts.  All  these  interments  however,  save  the  one 
at  St.  Martin's,  may  be  of  older  date  than  the  respective 
churches.  On  the  other  hand  at  Reading  there  are  some 
churchyard  burials  in  consecrated  ground  that  are  held  to  go 
back  to  the  later  Anglo-Saxon  period  but  are  unaccompanied 
by  tomb  furniture.  As  a  general  rule  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  the  practice  of  furnishing  the  tomb  was  pagan  but  sur- 
vived by  a  sort  of  overlap  into  the  Christian  period,  so  that 
tomb  furniture  might  find  a  place  in  a  Christian  burial  in  a 
pagan  cemetery.  On  the  other  hand  even  while  the  older 
cemeteries  were  in  use  the  practice  of  grave-gifts  would  be 
gradually  declining  under  the  influence  of  the  new  faith,  and 
it  would  only  make  its  appearance  in  very  exceptional  cases 
when  the  burials  were  in  the  later  consecrated  graveyards. 

In  the  case  of  cemeteries  where  the  interments  were  marked 
by  burial  mounds  or  tumuli  the  site  of  them  would  still  be 
known  even  after  they  had  passed  wholly  out  of  use,  and  these 
mounds  figure  as  landmarks  in  the  indication  of  the  boundaries 
of  estates  in  Anglo-Saxon  land  charters.2  Kemble  writes  that 
the  burial  mounds  of  the  heathen  are  mentioned  in  this  con- 
nection 1 50  times  in  his  Codex  Diplomatics .  The  same  phrase, 
1  tumuli  paganorum,'  is  applied  to  the  old  burying  grounds 
that  are  contrasted  with  *  cimiteria  ecclesiae '  in  an  ordinance 
of  Charles  the  Great.3  In  other  cases  movable  memorials 
that  might  have  been  erected  above  new-made  graves  would 
in  time  be  levelled  or  destroyed  and  the  place  pass  entirely 
out  of  remembrance,  though  accidental  discoveries,  often 
through  agricultural  or  mining  operations,  might  at  any  time 
be  made.  A  very  curious  narrative  of  events  that  occurred 
near   St.    Albans   in    1177,    preserved    to    us    by    Roger   of 

1  Ass.  Soc.  Reports,  1888,  427. 

2  The  Arts,  etc.,  vol.  1,  p.  85  f.  8  ibid.,  p.  260. 


SIR  THOMAS  BROWNE  121 

Wendover,1  shows  that  at  any  rate  at  that  time  and  place 
burial  mounds  were  no  longer  recognized  as  pagan  sepulchres. 
In  some  open  ground  at  Redbourne  three  miles  north  of 
St.  Albans  there  were  two  eminences  called  '  hills  of  the 
banners '  because  they  were  gathering  places  for  religious 
processions.  In  some  way  it  must  have  come  to  be  known 
that  they  enshrined  human  remains,  for  in  that  year  the 
mounds  were  solemnly  opened  and  bodies  supposed  to  be 
those  of  early  martyrs  were  discovered  and  borne  in  ecclesi- 
astical state  to  the  Abbey  Church.  These  were  really  of 
course  the  skeletons  of  Anglo-Saxons  of  the  pagan  period 
buried  in  or  under  tumuli,  and  we  learn  that  one  of  the 
'  martyrs '  had  two  '  large  knives '  by  him,  one  in  his  skull 
and  the  other  in  his  breast — obviously  the  usual  spear  head 
which  is  generally  close  to  the  skull,  and  the  knife  worn  at 
the  waist. 

There  is  evidence  on  the  Continent  that  old  Teutonic 
sepulchres  were  invaded  in  the  middle  ages  in  search  of 
treasure,2  and  the  laws  against  the  rifling  of  graves  occurring 
in  the  early  Teutonic  codes  show  that  this  practice  began 
betimes,  but  the  writer  knows  of  no  special  evidence  to  prove 
this  in  our  own  country.  In  XVII  cremation  urns  found  in 
Anglo-Saxon  cemeteries  in  Norfolk  gave  the  text  on  which  Sir 
Thomas  Browne  framed  his  famous  discourse  entitled  Uydrio- 
taphia,  Urne  Buriall?  In  this  the  eloquent  stylist  moralizes 
at  large  on  the  subject  of  mortality,  and  introduces  some 
interesting  paragraphs  on  the  special  objects  that  had  attracted 
his  attention — the  *  sad  and  sepulchral  Pitchers,  .  .  .  silently 
expressing  old  mortality,  the  ruines  of  forgotten  times.'  Some 
of  his  observations  are  acute  and  accurate,  but  his  point  of 
view  was  of  course  literary  rather  than  archaeological,  and  the 

1  Rolls  Series,  No.  84/j,  p.  no. 

2  Boulanger,  Marcbelepot,  p.  3. 

3  The  Works  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  ed.  Charles  Sayle,  Edinburgh,  1907, 
in,  104.  f. 


122  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

modern  scientific  era  of  exploration  does  not  begin  till  the  first 
half  of  XVIII  when  in  1730  Dr.  Mortimer,  secretary  to  the 
Royal  Society,  opened  some  barrows  on  Chartham  Down  in 
Kent  and  reported  to  the  Society  on  their  contents.  The 
extensive  operations  carried  on  in  that  county  in  the  last  half 
of  the  century  are  a  credit  to  British  archaeology,  and  a  word 
or  two  about  them  will  not  be  out  of  place. 

In  the  year  just  mentioned  Bryan  Faussett,  who  had  been 
born  and  reared  in  '  an  old  castellated  mansion  of  the  reign  of 
Stephen,'1  watched  as  a  boy  of  ten  this  opening  of  sepulchral 
tumuli  on  Chartham  Down,  and  the  antiquarian  tastes  which 
this  experience  and  all  his  early  surroundings  at  Heppington 
had  fostered2  were  given  full  play  in  the  extensive  series  of 
excavations  he  carried  on  in  the  ancient  cemeteries  of  his 
county  from  1757  to  1773.  The  results  of  his  discoveries  as 
they  proceeded  he  wrote  down  in  what  has  been  well  called  a 
c  plain,  clear  narrative  of  facts,  daily  recorded  with  cautious 
attention  to  the  most  minute  circumstances,' 3  but  as  a  fact 
neither  these  records  nor  the  objects  that  were  their  subject 
matter  ever  saw  the  light  till  more  than  three-quarters  of  a 
century  had  elapsed  since  his  operations  were  concluded.  In 
1854  the  collections  and  manuscripts  passed  into  the  hands  of 
Mr.  Joseph  Mayer  of  Liverpool  and  both  were  soon  made 
accessible  to  the  public,  the  first  by  their  public  exhibition  in 
what  is  known  as  the  Mayer-Faussett  collection  in  the  Liver- 
pool Museum,  the  latter  by  their  publication  in  the  well- 
known  Inventorium  Sepulchrale,  ably  edited  by  Charles  Roach 
Smith.  Meanwhile,  still  in  XVIII,  a  younger  contemporary 
and  compatriot  of  Faussett,  the  Rev.  James  Douglas,  had  pub- 
lished in  1793  under  the  title  Nenia  Britannica  the  results  of 
similar  researches  to  those  of  the  Squire  of  Heppington.  The 
work  was  remarkable  not  only  for  the  facts  it  adduced  but  for 
the  sagacious  and  thoroughly  scientific  view  that  the  author 

1  Inventorium  Sepulchrale,  Appendix,  p.  203. 

2  I.e.  3  ibid.,  p.  1. 


BRYAN  FAUSSETT  AND  JAMES  DOUGLAS        123 

took  of  the  antiquarian  questions  which  these  facts  suggested. 
Here  the  contrast  between  Faussett  and  Douglas  is  very 
marked.  The  former  has  earned  the  gratitude  of  all  students 
of  our  early  antiquities,  not  only  for  what  he  brought  to  light, 
but  for  the  precise  information  he  gave  of  the  contents  of 
every  tomb  he  opened,  though  even  here  in  one  respect  his 
information  is  defective  in  that  he  did  not  furnish  plans  of  the 
cemeteries,  by  which  the  place  of  any  single  grave  or  group  of 
graves  in  relation  to  others  could  be  fixed.  With  all  his 
accuracy  however  in  recording  details  he  never  succeeded  in 
forming  for  himself  a  true  idea  of  the  nature  of  the  pheno- 
mena investigated.  To  the  end  of  his  life  he  believed  that  the 
tombs  which  by  the  hundred  he  was  opening  enclosed  the 
remains  of  people  he  called  *  Romans  Britonized  or  Britons 
Romanized,'  and  that  they  dated  as  a  rule  early  in  the  fifth 
century.  Exceptionally,  he  thinks,  burials  of  such  people  may 
have  gone  on  till  long  after  the  Romans  properly  so  called  had 
left  the  isle,  and  even  till  after  the  arrival  of  the  Saxons.1  He 
is  always  careful  nevertheless  to  guard  himself  from  drawing 
the  obvious  inference  that  the  graves  may  in  part  at  any  rate 
be  Saxon  ones,  and  insists  more  than  once  that  nothing  he  had 
found  in  any  one  of  them  suggests  such  a  provenance.2 

There  is  nothing  very  remarkable  in  such  a  misunder- 
standing of  newly  revealed  antiquarian  phenomena.  There 
were  competent  archaeologists  who  thought  at  first  that 
Schliemann's  citadel  tombs  at  Mycenae  contained  the  bodies 
of  Gothic  warriors.  Faussett's  error  brings  out  however  into 
clearer  light  the  perspicacity  of  his  fellow-worker,  Douglas. 
There  are  instances,  to  be  afterwards  particularized,  in  which 

1  Inv.   Sep.,  38. 

2  He  writes  of  the  Beakesbourne  cemetery,  one  of  his  latest  fields  of 
exploration,  p.  146, '  I  am  persuaded,  that  the  persons  here  deposited  were 
not  Saxons  ;  nothing  which  I  have  hitherto  met  with,  either  here  or  in  any 
other  place  where  I  have  dug,  having  the  least  appearance  of  the  remains  of 
that  people.' 


124  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

an  earlier  cremated  interment  makes  its  appearance  among  a 
number  of  graves  tenanted  by  the  unburnt   skeletons  of  the 
Teutonic  settlers.     Faussett  as  a  rule  recognizes  the  former  as 
survivals  but  draws  no  chronological  or  racial  inferences  from 
the  facts.     Douglas  on  the  contrary  regards  these  and  other 
allied  phenomena  with  the  eyes  of  an  enlightened  archaeologist 
of  to-day.     The  occurrence  of  a  coin  of  Justinian  (527-565), 
in  grave  41   at   Gilton    only  leads   Faussett  to  infer  that  his 
supposed  •  Romans '  of  Richborough   continued  to  bury  here 
'  even  to  the  very  dregs  of  the  empire/1  but  Douglas  fastens 
at  once  on  this  very  fact  as  a  clue  to  the  date  of  objects  found 
with  the  coin,  and  inferentially  to  that  of  the  whole  cemetery 
or  group  of  cemeteries.     These  he  conjectures  may  date  from 
between    the    earliest    possible   year    for    the    coin,    that    of 
Justinian's  accession   in    527,  to   742   when   the  decree  went 
forth  that  the  suburban  cemeteries  were  no  longer  to  be  used. 
If  pagan  the  graves  would  date  from  Justinian's  accession  to 
the  conversion  of  Kent  by  Augustine,  if  Christian  between  that 
time  and  the  middle  of  VIII.     In  one  passage  he  regards  the 
cemeteries  as  belonging  in  the  main  to  c  the  Christians  of  the 
sixth  and  perhaps  beginning  of  the  seventh  century'  though  in 
another  he   extends  the   time  to  the  first  part  of  the  eighth,2 
while  for  their  owners  he  looks  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  *  small 
burgs  or  stations  within  their  vicinity,'  and  in  the  case  of  the 
barrows   on    Sibertswold   Down    he    enumerates    Sibertswold 
itself,  Waldershare,   Eythorn    and   Barfreston,  all   as  '  Saxon 
places.'     This  is  of  course  all  in  general  accord  with  the  pre- 
vailing opinions  of  to-day,  and   his   summary  of  the   whole 
matter  needs  no  correction  from  the  present  point   of  view. 
"  The  discovery  of  coins,'  he  writes,3  '  the  workmanship  of  the 
relics,  arms,  and  nature  of  the  burial  places,  either  considered 
externally  or  internally,  show  them  to  belong  to  a  people  in  a 
state  of  peace,  and  in  general  possession  of  the  country.    Their 

1   Inv.  Sep.,  19. 

8   Nenia  Britannica,^.  97,  131.  3  ibid.,  p.   177. 


PERSPICACITY  OF  DOUGLAS  125 

situation  near  villages  of  Saxon  names,  their  numbers  propor- 
tioned to  a  small  clan  of  people  existing  at  a  particular  aera, 
afford  the  critical  evidence  of  their  owners.  They  are  scattered 
all  over  Britain  in  places  which  the  Saxons  occupied,  and  are 
not  discovered  in  the  parts  of  Wales  which  they  had  not 
subdued.' 

In  matters  of  detail  also  Douglas  is  refreshingly  modern. 
He  is  as  puzzled  as  we  are  as  to  the  exact  significance  of  the 
orientation  of  graves  and  of  the  presence  or  absence  of  tomb 
furniture.1  The  occasional  traces  of  cremation  he  notes  as 
•  attesting  that  a  succeeding  people  had  buried  near  one  of  a 
more  ancient  date,  when  cremation  had  been  used,' 2  and  he  is 
quite  alive  to  the  difference  between  cremation  urns,  or,  as 
they  used  to  be  called,  c  ossuaries,'  and  those  placed,  for  what 
exact  reason  it  is  difficult  to  say,  with  the  inhumed  skeletons.3 
He  notes  that  the  swords  in  his  collection  had  no  guards,4 
and  understands,  what  puzzled  Faussett,  the  use  of  the  handle- 
bar of  the  shield  crossing  the  hollow  of  the  umbo.6 

On  the  question  of  the  provenance  of  the  coloured  beads 
which  figure  so  largely  in  Anglo-Saxon  finds  he  is  almost 
startlingly  up  to  date  with  his  remark  that  *  they  were  in  all 
probability  introduced  into  this  country  by  barter  from 
Marseilles.' 6  About  the  origin  and  affinities  of  the  tomb 
furniture  in  general  he  lays  it  down  that  '  the  nature  of  the 
arms,  the  most  convincing  proof  of  a  parity  of  custom,  found 
in  the  barrows,  affix  them  to  their  Saxon  owners,'7  and  the 
plausible  theory,  that  has  so  often  found  expression,  according 
to  which  this  tomb  furniture  is  proximately,  or  in  ultimate 
origin,  Roman,  he  cannot  away  with.  '  The  Roman  claim  to 
these  sepulchres,  notwithstanding  their  coins  have  been  found, 
must  be  totally  out  of  the  question,'  he  writes,8  and  he  suggests 

1  Nenia  Britannica,  p.  63  note.  2  ibid.,  p.  125. 

3  ibid.,  p.  114.  4  ibid.,  p.  121. 

5  ibid.,  p.  113,  cf.  Inv.  Sep.,  pp.  10,  63. 

6  Nenia  Britannica,  p.  177.  7  ibid.,  p.  128.  8  ibid.,  p.  127. 


126  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

what  not  a  few  in  these  days  would  hear  with  some  sympathy, 
that  much  of  the  tomb  furniture  might  have  an  Eastern  origin. 
To  see,  as  he  does,1  '  Gothic  art '  in  the  fashion  of  the  fibulae 
(radiated  and  square  headed)  is  for  the  time  almost  an  act  of 
divination.  The  fact  that  he  doubts  the  power  of  the  native 
Anglo-Saxon  craftsman,  in  the  early  days  of  the  settlement, 
to  execute  fine  work  need  not  count  against  him,  for  this  view 
has  been  held  by  many  excellent  authorities  and  still  survives 
among  us.  John  Yonge  Akerman,  writing  in  1847,2  gives 
it  as  his  opinion  that  '  the  more  costly  articles  of  personal 
ornament  were  generally  imported,'  and  the  same  supposition 
is,  we  have  already  seen,  not  uncommon  among  our  fellow- 
countrymen  even  of  to-day. 

The  main  point  in  which  Douglas's  explanations  are 
markedly  of  a  bygone  type  is  his  insistence  on  a  superstitious 
or  magical  origin  for  many  objects  and  arrangements  of  which 
a  more  prosaic  account  would  now  be  given.  With  this 
reserve  one  may  treat  him  as  one  would  treat  a  modern 
authority,  and  it  is  a  fact  to  be  duly  noted  that  the  first  book 
published  on  this  important  branch  of  our  national  antiquities 
is  of  such  great  and  permanent  value. 

In  his  illustrations  also  Douglas  adopts  modern  methods. 
For  example  his  first  plate  gives  in  business-like  fashion  a 
view  of  the  skeleton  in  its  tumulus  showing  the  position  of 
the  tomb  furniture,  and  adds  representations  of  the  different 
objects  on  a  larger  scale.  This  is  reproduced  on  PL  xm  in 
this  Volume  (p.  153). 

Since  the  days  of  Faussett  and  Douglas  explorations  of 
Anglo-Saxon  cemeteries  have  been  constantly  in  progress,  and 
in  many  instances  have  been  watched  and  reported  on  in 
accordance  with  the  standards  observed  in  the  scientific  age  in 
which  we  live.  This  has  not  however  always  been  the  case, 
and  many  cemeteries  accidentally  discovered  have  been  pillaged 

1  Nenia  Britannic  a,  p.  130. 

2  An  Archaeological  Index,  Lond.,  184.7,  P«  l2&- 


CEMETERY  EXPLORATION  127 

at  hazard  and  the  contents  of  the  graves  dispersed  without 
any  proper  record  having  been  kept.  The  earlier  investiga- 
tors had  the  advantage  that  they  worked  on  sites  known  as 
those  of  ancient  cemeteries  through  the  presence  on  them  of 
burial  mounds,  and  they  proceeded  with  deliberation  and 
system.  Where  there  is  no  external  mark  the  discovery  is 
generally  a  chance  one,  and  the  results  noticed  above  have  too 
often  followed.  Even  the  best  of  the  old  explorers  however 
and  many  of  the  moderns  have  paid  far  more  attention  to  the 
single  graves  than  to  their  connection  and  to  their  place  in 
the  cemetery  as  a  whole,  and  in  this  way  a  good  deal  of 
valuable  evidence  has  been  lost.  Almost  all  the  larger 
cemeteries  had  clearly  been  in  use  for  a  considerable  period  of 
years,  and  the  digging  of  the  graves  for  successive  generations 
must  have  proceeded  according  to  a  certain  system.  Either 
the  burial  ground  was  extended  in  concentric  fashion  round 
an  original  centre,  or  it  was  enlarged  progressively  in  one 
direction  or  in  two.  In  any  case  if  the  system  pursued  were 
known  we  should  have  a  valuable  indication  of  chronology. 
To  work  out  the  scheme  is  of  course  a  matter  of  inference, 
based  on  the  appearance  in  this  part  or  in  that  of  the  area  of 
objects  the  approximate  date  of  which  is  otherwise  known. 
If  a  number  of  graves  in  one  part  contain  early  tomb  furniture 
and  a  group  of  others  in  another  part  late  objects,  while 
transitional  pieces  occur  in  between,  there  is  already  a  basis 
for  a  hypothesis  of  the  history  of  the  cemetery,  and  if  this  can 
be  established  there  is  acquired  a  means  for  arriving  at  the  date 
of  things  the  chronology  of  which  has  been  hitherto  uncertain. 
It  is  very  seldom  indeed  that  graves  have  been  divided  up  in 
this  way  by  their  explorers  into  groups  in  their  chronological 
aspects.  Careful  investigators  like  Faussett  and  very  many  of 
his  successors  have  numbered  their  graves  in  correspondence 
with  their  inventory,  but  about  the  topographical  relations  of 
these  graves  we  are  too  often  left  in  doubt. 


128  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

II.  The  number  and  extent  of  the  cemeteries. 

The  term  '  cemetery '  is  clear  enough  in  its  meaning  but 
exactly  how  much  it  must  be  taken  to  denote  is  uncertain. 
One  burial  can  hardly  constitute  in  ordinary  parlance  a 
cemetery,  yet  there  are  interments  in  which  only  a  single 
body  has  been  found  but  which  in  respect  of  tomb  furniture 
are  of  the  utmost  importance.  Such  for  example  are  the 
single  burials  at  Taplow,  Bucks,  and  Broomfield,  Essex.  As 
a  rule  however  where  one  body  comes  to  light  others  are 
found  near  it,  and  the  Teutonic  cemetery  seems  on  the  whole 
to  testify  to  a  strong  social  instinct  among  the  people  that 
in  death  drew  the  units  of  the  population  together.  Whether 
each  Anglo-Saxon  village  community  had  its  cemetery  or  several 
villages  took  their  dead  to  some  one  central  burying  ground 
is  hard  to  say,  but  no  cemetery  that  has  been  properly  examined 
appears  to  have  been  divided  up  into  portions  such  as  might  be 
expected  if  the  latter  arrangement  prevailed.  On  the  other 
hand  the  village  communities  in  Saxon  times  seem  on  the  whole 
to  have  been  isolated  and  self-contained,1  just  as  they  were  in 
the  later  middle  ages  when  each  village  had  its  own  special 
church  and  graveyard,  and  it  is  most  probable  that  each  early 
Teutonic  community  possessed  its  own  little  necropolis. 

If  this  be  the  case,  only  an  infinitesimal  proportion  of  the 
whilom  country  cemeteries  has  been  recovered,  for  in  most  of 
the  English  districts  they  are  few  and  far  between  as  compared 
with  the  villages.  At  the  same  time  in  exceptional  regions  the 
known  cemeteries  are  proportionately  plentiful  and  this  pro- 
portion may  have  been  general  throughout  the  country.  The 
case  is  probably  the  same  with  the  cemeteries  as  with  the 
churches  of  the  period,  upon  which  it  was  remarked  in  a 
previous  volume  that  the  known  Saxon  churches  in  the  country 
tend  to  fall  into  groups  while  pretty  wide  regions  are  on  the 
other  hand  left  blank.  The  explanation  partly  is  that  when 
one  example  in  a  certain  district  is  brought  to  light  and  com- 

1  Vol.  i,  p.  81. 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  CEMETERIES  129 

merited  on,  the  interest  thereby  excited  leads  to  the  recognition 
of  other  examples  of  a  similar  style  of  work  in  the  neighbour- 
hood. So  with  the  cemeteries.  A  fortunate  discovery  in  one 
part  sharpens  people's  eyes,  and  indications  in  other  spots  in 
the  vicinity  are  more  quickly  noted  and  followed  up.  It  was 
noticed  in  the  Victoria  History l  in  connection  with  East  Anglia 
that  cremated  burials  are  much  more  likely  to  pass  unnoticed 
than  those  in  which  the  skeleton  remains,  for  cinerary  urns, 
which  seldom  contain  any  conspicuous  object  that  would  strike 
a  casual  finder,  must  have  been  destroyed  unnotified  by  farm 
labourers  in  a  countless  number  of  cases.  Hence  in  the 
cremation  area  of  Teutonic  England  many  cemeteries  may 
have  been  actually  discovered  but  passed  unrecorded.  In  parts 
of  Kent,  about  Cambridge,  along  the  valley  of  the  Lark  in 
north-western  Suffolk,  and  perhaps  elsewhere,  the  known 
cemeteries  seem  almost  as  numerous  as  the  local  villages. 
For  example,  about  what  was  formerly  the  haven  of  Rich- 
borough,  on  the  comparatively  elevated  ground  from  Ramsgate 
round  to  Walmer,  there  were  extensive  cemeteries  at  Ozengell, 
Sarre,  and  Gilton,  and  lesser  ones  at  Ramsgate,  at  Goldston- 
under-Ash,  near  Woodnesborough,  at  Eastry,  and  at  some 
places  on  the  downs  between  this  and  the  coast  by  Kingsdown, 
a  number  that  corresponds  fairly  with  that  of  the  known  early 
settlements  on  the  same  circuit.  This  agrees  with  what  Linden- 
schmit2  says  about  the  cemeteries  in  the  middle  Rhine  district 
where  they  '  are  so  surprisingly  abundant  that  almost  all  the 
villages  which,  with  slight  exceptions,  can  be  recognized  as 
very  ancient  settlements  also  possess  their  Frankish  cemeteries, 
so  that  a  district  some  eight  or  nine  miles  across  may  contain 
from  eight  to  ten  of  these.'  Of  course  the  whole  number  of 
identified  graves  is  very  small  indeed  in  relation  to  the  prob- 
able Anglo-Saxon  population.  Bede  tells  us  that  the  South 
Saxon  kingdom  contained  7000  '  familiae,'  which  might  imply 

1  Norfolk,  vol.  1,  p.  344. 

2  Handbuch,  p.  90. 
Ill  I 


1 3o  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

a  population  of  some  35,000,  but  less  than  500  Sussex  graves 
of  the  period  are  known. 

None  of  our  English  cemeteries  compares  in  extent  with 
the  largest  ones  abroad,  but  Mr.  G.  W.  Thomas,  the  explorer 
of  Sleaford  cemetery,  Lincolnshire,  estimated  the  whole  con- 
tents of  it  at  about  600  bodies,1  its  area  at  |-  acre.  That  of 
Kingston  in  Kent  where  Faussett  in  XVIII  opened  308  tombs 
is  one  of  the  most  extensive  of  those  fully  inventorized, 
though  the  one  at  the  King's  Field,  Faversham,  may  have  sur- 
passed it.  At  Sarre  nearly  300  graves  were  found.  These 
are  very  small  when  compared  with  a  cemetery  like  Keszthely 
in  Hungary  where  three  or  four  thousand  graves  were  exca- 
vated,2 or  that  of  Marchelepot  near  Peronne  in  northern 
France,  with  its  4000  graves  in  a  space  of  about  4  acres  of 
ground.3  The  total  at  Eprave  in  Belgium  is  reckoned  at 
about  iooo.4  At  Herpes  on  the  Charente  in  western  France 
M.  Delamain  opened  900  tombs.  Alamannic  cemeteries  and 
those  of  the  Marcomanni  from  whom  the  Bavarians  descend  are 
large.  Lindenschmit  gave  the  contents  of  that  at  Fridolfing 
at  3000  to  4000  bodies,5  and  the  recently  explored  field  at 
Reichenhall  near  Salzburg  furnished  evidence  that  at  least 
1000  bodies  had  been  interred  in  it.6  This  difference  in 
populousness  between  English  and  foreign  graveyards  will  be 
noticed  from  another  point  of  view  under  heading  VI  (p.  172). 

III.  The  location  of  the  cemeteries  in  relation  to  the  dis- 
tribution of  the  Teutonic  population,  the  natural  features  of 
the  country,  and  the  social  and  sepulchral  arrangements  of  the 
earlier  inhabitants  whom  the  invaders  dispossessed. 

1  Archaeologia,  l,  385. 

2  Hampel,  Alterthiimer  in  Ungarn,  1,  18. 

3  Boulanger,  Marchelepot,  p.  3. 

4  Annales  de  la  Societe  Arch'eologique  de  Namur,  xix,  43 5  f. 

5  Handbuch,  p.  91. 

6  Max  von  Chlingensperg-Berg,  Das  Gr'dberfeld  von  Reichenhall,  p.  39. 


CONTINUITY  IN  BURIALS  131 

It  is,  we  have  just  seen,  more  in  accordance  with  likelihood 
that  each  village  community  possessed  its  own  graveyard  than 
that  big  cemeteries  provided  for  the  needs  of  whole  districts. 
These  burying  grounds  differed  from  the  later  churchyards  in 
that  they  were  not  in  the  centre  of  or  even  within  the  circum- 
ference of  the  village  but  at  some  distance  from  it,  on  ground 
that  would  be  called  technically  in  modern  parlance  '  the  waste 
of  the  manor.'  The  inclusion  of  the  c  mounds  of  the  heathen  ' 
in  the  boundaries  of  estates  (p.  120)  shows  that  these  were  not 
away  in  the  wild  in  a  sort  of  '  no  man's  land '  but  on  the 
perimeter  of  the  property,  though  it  does  not  follow  that  all 
cemeteries  had  just  this  kind  of  location.  There  are  cases  in 
which  they  seem  to  have  been  much  nearer  to  the  centres  of 
habitation  than  the  indication  just  given  would  imply.  For 
example,  at  Sleaford  in  Lincolnshire,  the  extensive  cemetery 
was  found  in  a  field  only  100  yards  south  of  the  town,1  and 
that  at  Filkins  in  Oxfordshire  is  described  as  c  obviously  within 
the  ancient  limits  '  of  the  village.2 

Furthermore  the  situation  of  the  graveyard  must  have 
been  at  times  determined  by  the  existence  of  earlier  cemeteries 
near  the  places  of  settlement.  In  ancient  days  the  cemetery 
was  £  religiosum,'  and  the  sacred  places  of  a  people  were  often 
viewed  with  respect  and  even  reverence  by  later  immigrants 
who  came  in  to  occupy  that  people's  lands.  Old  oriental  and 
classical  examples  of  this  are  numerous,  for  example  Bethel  in 
Palestine,  and  the  site  of  the  temple  of  Artemis  at  Ephesus  in 
Ionia.  The  Teutonic  conquerors  of  Britain,  who  held  at  any 
rate  sufficient  intercourse  with  the  older  inhabitants  to  learn 
from  them  the  Celtic  names  of  the  rivers,  may  well  have 
accepted  as  a  local  institution,  not  to  be  lightly  ignored,  the 
traditional  place  for  the  disposal  of  the  dead.  It  bears  upon 
this  to  find  it  noticed  at  times  by  explorers  that  when  an 
earlier  cremation  burial  has  been  disturbed  by  a  later  Anglo- 
Saxon    interment  the    previous   remains   were   treated    with 

1  Archafologia,  l,  383.  2  ibid.,  xxxvn,  145. 


132 


THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 


reverent  care.     This  was  observed  by  Faussett  at  Gilton  and 
by  Akerman  at  Long  Wittenham. 

It  is  the  case  at  any  rate  that  in  many  parts  of  the  country 
the  new  comers  continued  to  use  older  burying  places.  This 
is  to  be  observed  for  example  on  the  chalk  downs  of  Kent, 
Sussex,  the  Isle  of  Wight,  and  Wiltshire  ;  the  wolds  of  the  East 
Riding  of  Yorkshire,  the  heaths  of  East  Anglia,  the  hills  of 
North  Derbyshire,1  the  shores  of  the  Thames  and  its  affluents. 
In  Kent  in  the  case  of  10  sepulchral  areas  out  of  the  25  analysed 
in  a  later  chapter  there  was  this  evidence  of  preoccupation,  and 
the  striking  instance  at  Broadstairs  (p.  22)  will  be  remembered. 


VALETTA 
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Fig.  3. — Recently  discovered  Burying  Ground  at  Broadstairs. 

Accidental  discoveries  here  in  1910-11  revealed  the  fact 
that  an  Anglo-Saxon  burying  ground  underlay  the  carriage 
drive  and  lawn  of  a  modern  villa.  A  thorough  exploration 
was  conducted  and  recorded  with  scientific  completeness  and 
accuracy  by  Mr.  Howard  Hurd,  the  Borough  Surveyor  of 
Broadstairs,  who  has  kindly  furnished  the  accompanying  plan, 
Fig.  3.     Below  the  level  of  the  Jutish  graves  there  were  dis- 

1  Bateman,  Ten  Years'  Diggings,  Introduction,  p,  xiii. 


BURIALS  IN  EARLIER  BARROWS  133 

closed  two  concentric  circular  trenches,  the  outer  ring  being  70 
or  80  ft.  in  diameter  and  the  two  trenches  averaging  in  width 
about  4  ft.  at  the  bottom  by  8  ft.  at  the  top  with  a  depth  of 
about  4  ft.  Within  the  inner  trench  which  formed  a  circle  of 
46  ft.  diameter  or  close  to  the  edge  of  it  were  nine  human 
skeletons  for  the  most  part  in  a  crouching  position  (p.  153), 
and  a  careful  examination  of  the  skulls  coupled  with  other 
indications  pointed  to  a  date  for  the  interments  in  the  Later 
Bronze  Age.  Quite  distinct  from  these  were  the  later  Jutish 
graves  in  which  the  bodies  were  laid  at  full  length.  The  plan, 
Fig.  3,  will  show  the  positions  and  relations  of  the  two  sets  of 
interments. 

On  the  high  ground  above  Glynde  to  the  east  of  Lewes  in 
Sussex  in  close  conjunction  with  Saxon  graves  were  found 
earlier  cinerary  urns  containing  cremated  bones.1  A  large 
barrow  on  Bowcombe  Down  in  the  Isle  of  Wight  contained 
in  the  centre  a  primary  interment  of  Celtic  date  and  in  the 
outlying  portions  several  Saxon  inhumed  bodies.2  Intrusive 
Anglo-Saxon  burials  in  earlier  barrows  in  Wiltshire  have  been 
noted,  as  in  the  Wiltshire  Magazine,  vi,  332  ;  x,  91  ;  xxn, 
345  ;  and  by  General  Pitt  Rivers  in  the  case  of  Winklebury 
Hill s ;  another  Wiltshire  case  has  been  noticed  above  (p.  120). 
At  Avening  in  Gloucestershire  a  tumulus  showed  clear  traces 
of  cremation  burials  in  its  centre  and  in  the  outer  area  were 
seven  or  eight  skeletons  buried  with  Saxon  tomb  furniture.4 
At  Oldbury  near  Atherstone,  Warwickshire,  a  secondary 
Anglo-Saxon  interment  was  found  in  a  prehistoric  barrow.5 
The  riparian  cemetery  at  Frilford  in  the  Thames  valley,  three 
or  four  miles  from  Abingdon  on  the  tributary  stream  of  the 
Ock,  presented  a  remarkable  example  of  the  use  of  a  single 

1  Victoria  History,  Sussex,  1,  388. 

2  Ass.,  xvi,  254  f. 

3  Excavations  in  Cranbourne  Chase,  11,  257, 

4  Proc.  Soc.  Ant.,  1st  Sen,  1,  241. 

5  Coll.  Ant.,  1,  p.  38. 


i34  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

burying  ground  by  successive  peoples  and  by  the  same  peoples 
at  different  epochs  of  their  culture.  It  was  systematically 
explored  by  Professor  Rolleston  who  communicated  an  ela- 
borate report  on  his  researches  to  vol.  xlii  of  Archaeologia. 
He  divides  the  burials  into  no  fewer  than  five  classes  of  which 
two  were  British  and  three  Saxon. 

The  burials  on  the  Wolds  of  East  Yorkshire  have  been 
carefully  described  by  Canon  Greenwell  in  his  British  Bar- 
rows? and  by  Mr.  J.  R.  Mortimer  in  a  work  entitled  Forty 
Tears  Researches  in  British  and  Saxon  Burial  Mounds  of  East 
Yorkshire.2  In  both  cases  the  writers  were  primarily  con- 
cerned with  Celtic  burials  in  round  barrows  of  the  Bronze  Age 
but  intrusive  interments  of  Anglo-Saxon  date  are  not  infre- 
quently noticed,  and  while  Canon  Greenwell  only  signalizes 
these  without  describing  them,  the  work  of  Mr.  Mortimer 
contains  full  records  as  well  as  illustrations  of  the  Teutonic 
tomb  furniture  thus  brought  to  light. 

The  group  of  burials  here  in  question  is  instructive  enough 
to  merit  some  special  notice.  It  is  situated  on  the  chalk 
uplands  that  sweep  in  a  great  curve  from  near  the  Humber  a 
few  miles  west  of  Hull,  by  Market  Weighton  and  Malton, 
and  then  round  eastward  to  near  Flamborough  Head,  and 
that  rise,  especially  between  the  towns  just  mentioned,  to 
heights  of  600  to  800  ft.  Here,  generally  on  marked  eleva- 
tions overlooking  the  low  ground  to  the  north  and  westwards 
towards  York,  are  numerous  clusters  of  barrows  each  con- 
taining in  the  centre  one  primary  burial  in  the  inhumed  or 
cremated  form  and  also  very  commonly  in  other  parts  of  the 
mound  later  or  secondary  interments.  These  are  very  often 
almost  contemporary  with  the  original  burials,  or  at  any  rate, 
so  far  as  can  be  judged,  of  the  same  people  who  furnished  the 

1  Oxford,  1877. 

2  Edited  by  Mr.  T.  Sheppard,  Curator  of  the  Hull  Museum,  whither 
the  Mortimer  collections  from  the  Driffield  Museum  are  now  being 
transferred. 


YORKSHIRE  WOLD  BURIALS  135 

primary  body,1  but  Anglian  interments  of  a  much  later  date 
are  also  fairly  numerous.  These,  it  must  be  remarked,  are  in 
the  majority  of  cases  inhumed  interments,  cremation  being 
comparatively  rare.  For  example  on  one  of  the  highest  parts 
of  these  uplands,  on  Garrowby  Wold  near  Kirby  Underdale 
in  the  so-called  '  Beacon  Barrow,' 2  there  was  found  a  circular 
hole  excavated  in  the  chalk  below  the  barrow  and  filled  with 
the  calcined  human  bones  of  an  adult.  This  was  probably  a 
British  cremated  burial,  while  near  it  were  some  inhumed 
bones  accompanied  by  iron  weapons  of  an  unmistakably 
Anglian  type.  Not  far  from  this  on  Painsthorpe  Wold  Canon 
Greenwell  opened  a  large  barrow  at  Uncleby 3  which  contained 
evidences  of  cremated  primary  interments,  some  pottery  of 
the  British  type,  a  small  polished  greenstone  axe  and  other 
early  objects,  and  which  *  had,  at  a  time  long  subsequent  to  its 
original  construction,  been  made  use  of  for  burial  purposes 
by  a  community  of  Angles,  .  .  .  who  had  placed  in  it  the 
bodies  of  above  seventy  men,  women  and  children.  .  .  .  Quite 
a  small  museum  of  warlike,  domestic  and  personal  relics  was 
furnished  by  the  results  of  a  fortnight's  digging.'4  In  another 
district,  in  Airedale,  near  Ferrybridge,  Canon  Greenwell  ex- 
plored a  barrow  that  had  been  opened  before,  wherein  were 
interments  of  almost  every  possible  kind,  including  a  case  of 
an  unburnt  and  a  cremated  body  evidently  interred  at  the 
same  time.  The  latest  burials  were  those  of  some  half  dozen 
inhumed  bodies  laid  at  full  length  with  feet  to  the  east  and 
very  scanty  tomb  furniture — probably  Angles  of  VII.5 

1  '  Many  of  the  secondary  interments  must  have  taken  place  either  at  no 
great  interval  after  the  erection  of  the  mound,  or,  at  all  events,  before  any 
change  had  taken  place  in  burial  customs  or  in  the  manufacture  of  pottery, 
implements,  and  ornaments,'  etc.     Greenwell,  British  Barrows,  p.  17. 

2  Mortimer,  Forty  Tears'1  Researches,  etc.,  p.  144. 

3  British  Barrows,  p.  135. 

4  These  Uncleby  finds,  the  record  of  which  had  never  seen  the  light, 
form  the  subject  of  a  recent  communication  by  Mr.  Reginald  Smith  to 
Proc.  Soc.  Ant.,  xxiv.  5   British  Barrows,  371  f. 


136  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

Apart  from  these  instances  where  the  previous  use  of  the 
burying  ground  is  made  evident  by  recognizable  earlier  inter- 
ments, there  have  been  noticed  again  and  again  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  cemeteries  curious  pits  and  trenches  the  date  and  the 
purpose  of  which  are  obscure.  The  questions  whether  these 
are  part  of  the  arrangement  of  the  cemetery  by  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  or  are  of  older  date  than  the  Anglo-Saxon  use  ;  and 
what  purpose  they  had  originally  served,  or  were  made  to  serve 
by  the  Teutonic  immigrants  who  took  over  the  sites,  have 
never  been  systematically  examined.  The  appearances  are  of 
the  following  kind.  At  Barrington,  Cambs,  Mr.  W.  K.  Foster 
reported x  '  numerous  pits  of  various  dimensions,  whose  posi- 
tions appeared  to  bear  no  relation  to  those  of  the  graves  .  .  . 
they  were  filled  with  a  black  greasy  earth  interspersed  with 
occasional  shards  of  pottery,  bones,  and  teeth  of  animals  .  .  . 
that  they  are  not  of  Saxon  origin  is  clear.'  Running  from 
several  of  the  pits  were  ditches  or  drains.  Exactly  the  same 
combination  of  pit  and  ditch  was  observed  quite  recently  in 
the  Alfriston  cemetery,  Sussex,  and  similar  phenomena  were 
reported  at  Standlake,  Oxfordshire.  At  Stapenhill,  Stafford- 
shire,2 there  was  '  a  large  circular  hole,  some  three  feet  in 
depth,  containing  fragments  of  pottery  and  bones,  and  at  the 
bottom  of  it  a  dark,  unctuous-looking  kind  of  clay.'  Near 
this  was  a  ditch  containing  *  several  hundreds  of  animals'  bones, 
such  as  those  of  the  ox,  horse,  pig,  goat,  hare,  and  dog,  also 
numerous  fragments  of  pottery  of  Saxon,  Romano-British,  and 
Roman  origin,  and  a  few  probably  even  of  Celtic' 

It  is  clear  accordingly  that  intrusive  interments  in  burying 
places  of  the  earlier  population  were  not  uncommon  in  the 
various  parts  of  Teutonized  England,  and  it  may  be  noted 
that  not  only  was  the  practice  of  secondary  interment  in  vogue 
already  among  the  earlier  population  whose  were  the  original 

1  Cambridge  Antiquarian  Society's  Communications,  vol.  v,  Nov.  5,  1880. 

2  Transactions  of  Burton-on-Trent  Archaeological  Society,  1.,  Lond.,   1889, 
p.  160  f. 


BURIALS  IN  ROMAN  CEMETERIES  137 

barrows,  but  it  lasted  beyond  the  era  of  Anglo-Saxon 
paganism,  for  it  is  observed  that  in  the  later  Viking  age  the 
intrusive  burial  of  a  sea-rover  in  a  Bronze  Age  barrow  is  not 
uncommon.1 

This  use  by  the  Teutonic  immigrants  of  earlier  cemeteries 
is  chiefly  observable  in  connection  with  the  barrows  with 
cremated  interments  that  are  often  of  the  Bronze  Age  and 
may  date  from  a  millennium  before  the  migration,  and  not 
with  the  burying  grounds  in  use  by  the  Romano-British 
population  at  the  actual  period  of  the  conquest.  In  the  case 
of  these  the  continuity  in  sepulchral  usage  is  only  to  a  very 
slight  extent  in  evidence.  If  we  take  the  known  Roman  or 
Romano-British  cemeteries  attached  to  Roman  towns  we  have 
to  note  the  following.  The  Roman  cities  in  the  south-west 
and  west  of  England  do  not  come  into  question  because  these 
regions  did  not  pass  into  the  hands  of  the  invaders  till  the 
pagan  period  was  over,  but  of  those  towns  in  the  midland  and 
eastern  districts  where  the  old  Roman  cemeteries  have  been 
explored  only  York  seems  to  offer  unmistakable  evidence  of  a 
continuity  in  use.  There,  upon  the  *  Mount,'  a  raised  bank  of 
gravel  of  glacial  origin  across  which  the  Roman  road  from 
Tadcaster  enters  the  city,  cremation  urns  of  Anglian  type  have 
been  found  and  with  them  Roman  urns  and  coffins  of  stone, 
proving  the  common  use  of  a  burying  ground.  At  Lincoln 
though  Roman  remains  frequently  come  to  light  no  Saxon 
ones  have  been  found  with  them,  and  the  same  is  the  case  with 
London  and  with  Canterbury,  in  both  of  which  places  such 
Saxon  finds  as  have  been  noted  are  either  accidental  and  non- 
sepulchral  or  else  belong  to  the  Danish  period.  At  Colchester 
opinions  seem  to  differ  as  to  whether  there  was  continuity  in 
the  use  of  cemeteries,  but  Mr.  Arthur  Wright,  Curator  of  the 
Museum,  does  not  believe  that  the  collections  there  afford  any 
evidence  of  it.  It  stands  to  reason  that  casual  finds  may  come 
to  light  almost  anywhere,  but  these  must  not  be  charged  with 

1  Sophus  Miiller,  Nordiiche  Jltertumskunde,  11,  254. 


138  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

more  significance  than  they  can  reasonably  bear.  Thus  at 
Corbridge  in  Northumberland  early  Anglian  fibulae  and  beads 
were  found  together  with  fragments  of  an  urn  hinting  at  the 
interment  of  a  Germanic  lady  within  the  limits  of  Roman 
Corstopitum,  but  this  is  quite  an  isolated  phenomenon,  and 
the  burial,  if  it  were  one,  was  not  in  the  cemetery  of  the  place 
but  in  the  ruins  of  the  inhabited  town.  The  neighbourhood 
of  the  Roman  cemetery  at  Strood,  Kent,  across  the  river 
Medway  from  Rochester,  furnished  we  have  seen  at  least  one 
early  Anglo-Saxon  burial,  but  probably  that  of  a  wandering 
rover  rather  than  of  a  regular  settler,  and  in  any  case  the 
interment,  or  interments  for  another  warrior's  grave  had  pre- 
viously been  found,  was  only  contiguous  with  and  not  in  the 
Roman  cemetery.  At  Flixborough  in  North  Lincolnshire, 
Mr.  Arthur  Smith  of  the  Lincoln  Museum  identified  a  Roman 
site  and  found  with  the  remains  of  Roman  pottery  a  couple 
of  Saxon  brooches.  Saxon  urns  and  weapons  were  found  with 
Roman  burials  at  Hassocks,  Sussex.  At  Frilford,  Berks,  there 
was  distinct  evidence  of  continuity  from  Roman  to  pagan,  and 
apparently  to  Christian,  Saxon  times,1  but  Frilford  and  Flix- 
borough are  country  sites  not  in  the  vicinity  of  a  walled 
Romano-British  town.  Leicester  was  such  a  walled  town  and 
it  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  the  main  Roman  cemetery 
south-west  of  the  city  no  Saxon  remains  have  come  to  light, 
though  in  other  parts  outside  the  walls  a  certain  mixture  of 
Roman  and  Anglo-Saxon  funereal  relics  has  been  observed.2 
At  Roman  Ancaster  a  Saxon  cinerary  urn  was  discovered. 

On  the  whole  the  evidence  seems  clearly  to  show  that  the 
use  of  the  Roman  cemeteries  by  the  immigrant  Teutons  was 
like  their  employment  for  residence  of  the  Roman  towns, 
occurring  perhaps  here  and  there,  but  quite  casual  and  sporadic. 
At  Canterbury,  where  if  anywhere  continuity  of  residence  as 
well  as  burial  might  have  been  looked  for,  the  mediaeval  and 
modern  streets  do  not  correspond  to  the  Roman  ones,  and  all 

1  Archaeologia,  xlii,  419.  2  Victoria  History,  Leicestershire,  1,  199  f. 


INTERMENTS  IN  ROMAN  ROADS  139 

the  evidence  goes  to  show  that  after  the  Jutish  conquest  it  was 
abandoned,  '  and  for  a  long  time  its  ruins  remained  uninhabited 
and  desolate.' *  It  is  certain  that  the  Saxons  did  not  fix  upon 
these  walled  towns  as  their  places  of  abode,  but,  like  their 
kinsfolk  on  the  Continent  whom  Ammianus  Marcellinus  de- 
scribes as  averse  from  the  life  of  towns,  settled  in  the  country 
districts,  avoiding  even  as  was  noticed  before2  the  proximity 
of  the  Roman  roads.  In  regard  to  these  there  is  to  be 
noted  the  curious  fact  that  there  are  well-attested  instances 
where  Anglo-Saxon  interments  have  been  effected  beneath  the 
actual  surface  of  a  Roman  road.  This  undoubtedly  was  the 
case  on  the  Watling  Street  not  far  from  High  Cross  where  the 
Fosse  Way  crosses  the  great  north-western  thoroughfare,3  and 
on  the  Fosse  Way  itself  at  Cotgrave  in  Nottinghamshire.* 
A  burial  of  the  Viking  age  is  recorded  in  the  centre  of  the 
great  northern  thoroughfare  that  passes  Catterick  in  Yorkshire 
in  its  way  to  Corbridge  and  Scotland.5  On  the  other  hand 
near  Daventry  in  Northants  Anglo-Saxon  burials  were  found 
in  a  long  narrow  mound  that  ran  for  40  or  50  yards  parallel 
to  the  Watling  Street  and  just  outside  its  original  embank- 
ment.6 This  last  arrangement  is  quite  intelligible  and  would 
imply  a  recognition  of  the  Roman  tradition  of  burial  alongside 

1  Sir  Henry  Hovvarth,  Saint  Augustine  of  Canterbury ,  Lond.,  191 3,  p.  53. 

2  Vol.  1,  p.  58  f. 

8  The  well-known  antiquary,  M.  H.  Bloxam,  is  the  authority  for  this 
somewhat  surprising  fact,  and  he  was  a  resident  in  the  neighbourhood  so  that 
there  is  every  reason  to  trust  what  he  says.  His  account  is  contained  in  a 
small  book  published  in  London  in  1834  and  entitled  A  Glimpse  at  the 
Monumental  Architecture  and  Sculpture  of  Great  Britain,  p.  44,  and  begins 
'In  the  summer  of  1824,  some  labourers  employed  to  repair  the  Watling- 
street  road,  near  Bensford  Bridge  .  .  .  disturbed  a  number  of  human 
skeletons,  which  lay  buried  in  the  centre  and  on  the  sides  of  the  road,'  etc. 
This  site  is  referred  to  later  on  (p.  774)  under  the  name  '  Cestersover.' 

4  Ass.,  in,  297.  The  bodies  were  '  interred  in  the  line  of  road,  at  full 
length,  in  graves  cut  through  the  gravel  and  rubble  of  which  it  is  composed, 
down  to  the  rock,  which  is  met  with  about  two  feet  from  the  surface.' 

5  Arch.  Journ.,  v,  220.  6  Vict.  Hist.,  Notts,  1,  p.  197. 


140  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

a  highway.  Actually  to  break  up  the  surface  of  a  road  for  the 
purposes  of  interment  is  a  very  different  matter,  and  hard  to 
understand.  Mr.  Reginald  Smith  considers  the  Watling  Street 
and  Fosse  Way  burials  early  ones  of  V  or  VI,  but  such  a  use 
or  rather  misuse  of  the  thoroughfare  can  hardly  be  reconciled 
with  the  view  which  he  and  others  have  favoured,  that  the 
Teutonic  immigrants  employed  the  Roman  roads  for  their 
own  movements  and  traffic.1  The  burials  would  show  that 
the  purpose  of  the  roads  was  at  the  time  forgotten  or  at  any 
rate  ignored. 

The  fact  that  the  Saxons  did  not  employ  the  Roman 
cemeteries  agrees  entirely  with  their  avoidance  of  the  Roman 
towns,  but  conversely  it  invites  us  to  ask  whether  their  penchant 
for  interment  in  the  British  barrows  does  not  imply  a  similar 
appropriation  of  British  country  dwelling  places.  In  the  rural 
districts  there  existed  Romano-British  villages  such  as  those 
described  by  General  Pitt  Rivers  on  the  borders  of  Wilts  and 
Dorset,  or  even  in  some  parts  Celtic  ones  of  the  type  of  Meere 
by  Glastonbury.  How  far  did  the  invaders  take  these  over  for 
their  habitations  ? 

Professor  Maitland  in  his  Doomsday  Book  and  Beyond? 
while  emphasizing  the  Teutonic  character  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
settlements,  adds  that  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  '  very  often 
in  the  west  and  south-west  of  Britain  German  kings  and  eorls 
took  to  themselves  integral  estates  the  boundaries  and  agrarian 
arrangements  whereof  had  been  drawn  by  Romans  or  rather  by 
Celts.'  The  special  conditions  of  settlement  in  the  West 
cannot  here  be  discussed,  but  taking  the  country  as  a  whole 
continuity  of  habitation  must  be  denied.  Two  chapters  of  a 
recent  work  on  our  national  antiquities 3  are  devoted  to  the 
evidences  all  over  the  land  of  such  continuity,  but  the  instances 

1  Vict.  Hist.,  Warwick,  i,  251. 

2  Cambridge,  1897,  p.  351. 

8   Byways  in  British  Archaeology,  by  Walter  Johnson,  F.G.S.,  Cambridge, 
1912. 


SITES  OF  THE  SETTLEMENTS  141 

of  this  where  they  occur  strike  one  as  accidents  or  coincidences 
inevitable  in  a  small  and  well-peopled  country  rather  than  as 
illustrations  of  a  general  rule.  On  the  whole  the  impression 
left  on  the  mind  of  any  one  who  with  antiquarian  predilections 
passes  up  and  down  through  rural  England  is  that  the  first 
founders  of  the  { ings  '  and  *  hams '  and  *  tons  '  had   settled 


Fig.  4. — Site  of  Cemetery  on  Down  above  Folkestone,  Kent. 

down,  as  Tacitus  phrases  it,1  in  detached  bodies  apart  from  each 
other,  just  as  spring  or  field  or  grove  offered  attractions,  and 
that  it  was  only  by  some  chance  contingency  that  they  pitched 
on  the  site  either  of  a  Roman  villa  or  a  British  hamlet. 

This  independence  would  not  of  course  preclude  the 
appropriation  of  older  burying  grounds  where  the  site  of  these 
was  convenient.  The  barrows  were  themselves  generally  at 
some  distance  from  the  habitations  of  the  living,  and  they  also 

1  T>e  Mor.  Germ.,  xvi. 


142 


THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 


frequently  possessed  the  characteristic  of  being  on  compara- 
tively elevated  ground.  This  is  the  case  with  Bronze  Age 
barrows  on  the  Sussex  Downs  by  Lewes,  with  the  Wiltshire 
mounds,  the  Bronze  Age  barrows  on  the  Yorkshire  Wolds, 
and  the  Early  Iron  Age  tumuli  at  Arras  near  Market 
Weighton,  Yorks.  Now  a  predilection  for  an  elevated  site 
for  the  cemetery  has  been  ascribed  not  only  to  the  Anglo- 
Saxons    of    our    own    country   but,    as    by    Lindenschmit,1 


Fig.  5. — Site  of  High  Down  Cemetery,  Sussex,  from  the  South. 

Barriere-Flavy 2  and  others,  to  the  Teutons  in  general.  So  far 
as  English  cemeteries  are  concerned  this  principle  does  apply 
in  certain  regions,  and  there  are  conspicuous  instances  in  which 
a  site  of  commanding  elevation  has  been  selected  for  the  inter- 
ment, though  the  bodies  must  have  been  carried  up  by  a  long 
way  and  a  steep  one  from  the  settlements.  The  illustrations, 
Figs.  4  to  6,  exhibit  one  instance  in  Kent,  another  in  Sussex. 
Fig.  4  is  a  view  up  from  Folkestone  towards  the  chalk  down 
which  is  climbed  by  the  road  to  Dover.     Here  at  a  height  of 

1  Handbuch,  p.  128.  2  Les  Arts  Industries,  etc.,  1,  3. 


ELEVATED  SITES  FOR  CEMETERIES 


H3 


about  500  ft.  above  the  sea,  just  below  the  white  patch  that 
marks  a  chalk  quarry,  there  existed  a  cemetery  that  must,  one 
would  think,  have  served  for  the  Teutonic  settlers  on  the  lower 
ground  towards  the  sea,  for  there  is  no  trace  of  an  early 
Teutonic  population  any  nearer,  and  the  very  conspicuous  and 
lofty  situation  is  a  striking  fact  in  support  of  the  principle 
under  examination.  The  other  illustrations,  Figs.  5,  6,  show 
a  site  for  a  cemetery  more  remarkable  perhaps  than  that  of  any 
other  of  our  Teutonic  graveyards.  The  site  called  High 
Down  is  on  an  isolated  projecting  point  of  the  South  Downs 
that  rises  to  the  height  of  some  270  ft.  and  dominates  the 


Fig.  6. — Site  of  High  Down  Cemetery,  Sussex,  from  the  East. 

alluvial  plain  about  two  to  three  miles  in  width  on  which  are 
grouped  the  Saxon  settlements  Angmering,  Ferring,  Goring, 
Tarring,  Worthing,  and  others.  The  highest  point  of  the  hill 
has  been  taken  advantage  of  and  the  cemetery  occupies  part  of 
the  enclosure  of  an  ancient  British  camp,  the  site  of  which  is 
marked  in  the  sketches  by  a  plantation  of  bushy  trees.  If  Fig.  5 
give  the  aspect  of  the  height  from  the  south,  Fig.  6,  taken  at 
right  angles  to  the  other  view  from  the  east,  shows  how  it 
towers  also  above  the  undulating  down  country  at  its  back. 
The  view  is  taken  from  the  top  of  the  hill  out  of  Worthing  on 
the  road  to  Arundel  just  where  the  thoroughfare  makes  a 
sharp  bend  to  the  west,  and  exhibits  the  site  of  the  cemetery  as 
the  culminating  point  of  the  whole  district.    As  far  as  situation 


i44  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

goes  it  would  have  served  well  as  a  federal  cemetery  for  several 
associated  communities,  but  its  extent  is  only  about  ioo  graves. 
A  second  conspicuous  Kentish  example  may  be  found  at 
Chatham,  where  in  XVIII  Douglas  opened  many  graves  upon 
the  commanding  heights  facing  the  town  of  Rochester.  At 
Farthingdown  near  Colsdon  in  Surrey  there  is  a  cemetery  on  a 
breezy  ridge  of  the  chalk  down  400  ft.  above  the  sea. 

Taking  the  Anglo-Saxon  cemeteries  over  the  country 
generally,  it  is  certainly  the  rule  that  wherever,  as  in  the 
chalk-down  country  in  different  parts  of  England,  high 
ground  is  accessible  there  the  cemeteries  are  elevated,  but 
to  this  rule  there  are  plenty  of  exceptions.  The  important 
Faversham  cemetery  on  the  site  known  as  the  '  King's  Field ' 
is  near  the  town  and  borders  the  Roman  road,  though  higher 
ground  could  easily  have  been  reached.  In  Sussex  the  burial 
ground  sometimes  called  '  Saxonbury '  at  Kingston  by  Lewes 
is  by  no  means  elevated,  though  in  the  immediate  vicinity  the 
downs  rise  sharply  to  400  or  500  ft.  Some  of  the  cemeteries 
in  Wilts  are  up  on  the  downs,  but  in  contrast  to  the  elevation 
of  these  the  important  site  of  Harnham  Hill  opposite 
Salisbury  is  at  the  foot  of  their  escarpment.  The  Harnham 
site  is  an  example  worth  noting.  The  wayfarer  who  stands 
on  Harnham  Bridge  just  out  of  Salisbury  to  the  south  and 
looks  in  a  south-westerly  direction  towards  the  spire  of  Harnham 
church  will  have  his  eyes  turned  in  the  direction  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  cemetery  about  half  a  mile  away.  This  lies  at  the  top 
of  a  gentle  slope  upwards  from  the  Avon,  but  at  the  same 
time  just  at  the  foot  of  a  very  steep  scarp  of  the  chalk  down 
which  rises  abruptly  from  the  summit  of  the  gentle  slope,  and 
above  which  again  the  hill  ascends  to  a  considerable  height. 
Hence  it  is  clear  that  in  this  case  at  any  rate  the  makers  of 
the  cemetery  did  not  seek  for  any  special  elevation,  but  buried 
distinctly  under  the  hill  and  not  on  the  top  of  it,  though  on 
a  site  well  above  the  marshy  river  meadows.  In  Yorkshire 
the    wold    burials  of  the    East    Riding    are    at    considerable 


RIPARIAN  CEMETERIES  145 

elevations,  but  nearer  York  the  urn  cemetery  at  Heworth 
a  mile  or  so  from  the  centre  of  the  city  is  in  the  flat  country, 
though  itself  on  a  slight  rise  similar  to  the  *  Mount '  (p.  137) 
on  the  other  side  of  the  city.  At  Saltburn-on-Sea  in  the 
north  of  the  county  a  commanding  site  was  chosen,  but  over 
the  border  in  Durham  for  the  cemetery  at  Darlington  no 
special  elevation  was  sought.  At  Sleaford,  Lincolnshire,  in 
the  extreme  south  of  the  same  Northumbrian  region,  it  was 
noted  that  there  was  '  but  little  elevation  in  the  ground 
occupied  by  the  cemetery.'1  The  cemetery  at  Little  Wil- 
braham,  Cambs,  is  on  a  hill  of  about  100  ft.  in  height,  but 
the  low-lying  site  of  Cambridge  itself  has  furnished  a 
considerable  number  of  burials,  some  of  which  are  on  gravel 
spits,  though  one  cemetery,  that  in  St.  John's  College  cricket 
field,  is  in  the  alluvial  clay  of  the  river.  Marston  St. 
Lawrence,  Northants,  is  on  an  elevated  ridge  overlooking  the 
valley  of  the  Cherwell,  and  North  Luffenham,  Rutland,  is  on 
high  ground,  350  ft.  above  the  sea. 

There  are  on  the  other  hand  a  whole  class  of  cemeteries, 
represented  especially  in  the  Thames  Valley  and  in  those  of 
the  Trent,  the  Warwickshire  Avon,  the  Nene,  the  Bedford- 
shire Ouse,  that  may  be  called  riparian,  in  that  they  keep  to 
the  neighbourhood  of  the  waterways  and  are  satisfied  with 
sites  only  high  enough  to  be  clear  of  marshy  land  or  that 
subject  to  floods.  The  course  of  the  Thames  and  those  of  its 
tributaries  are  lined  with  cemeteries  such  as  these.  Sitting- 
bourne,  Northfleet  by  Gravesend,  Greenwich,  Mitcham, 
Shepperton,  Reading,  Long  Wittenham,  Frilford,  Bright- 
hampton  and  Standlake,  Fairford,  are  examples,  to  the  general 
situation  of  which  parallels  could  be  found  in  the  other  river 
valleys  named  above.  The  Trent  Valley  cemetery  at 
Stapenhill  near  Burton  is  however  quite  on  high  ground, 
120  ft.  above  the  stream,  while  those  at  Holme  Pierrepont, 
King's  Newton,   and  Newark   are   more  on   the    flat.     The 

1  Archueologia,  l,  385. 
Ill  K 


146  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

cemetery  at  Longbridge  near  Warwick  is  down  by  the  Avon 
on  a  slightly  sloping  bank  of  river  gravel ;  Kempston  is 
in  a  somewhat  similar  position  in  relation  to  the  Ouse  near 
Bedford. 

A  reason  explaining  a  penchant  for  an  elevated  situation 
for  a  cemetery  may  be  found  in  the  traditions  of  a  marsh- 
land people,  who  in  their  original  low-lying  home  had  been 
forced  to  this  precaution  in  order  to  secure  a  safe  resting 
place  for  their  dead.  The  lands  from  which  the  Teutonic 
invaders  of  Britain  originally  came  are  not  by  any  means 
all  marshy  or  even  flat,  but  the  reason  suggested  may  in 
some  cases  have  validity.1 

IV.  The  treatment  of  the  body  before  burial,  and  the 
disposal  of  it  or  its  ashes  in  the  receptacle  prepared  for  it. 

This  topic  introduces  the  question  of  the  two  methods 
in  use  for  the  disposal  of  the  body  in  Teutonic  cemeteries, 
cremation  and  inhumation,  and  this  is  a  subject  that  could 
only  be  fully  discussed  in  connection  with  historical  and 
ethnic  considerations  that  cannot  here  be  introduced.  The 
theme  is  dealt  with  in  a  later  chapter  (Ch.  x).  Here  it  is 
only  necessary  to  notice  that  both  customs  are  in  evidence 
in  English  cemeteries,  but  that  during  all  the  time  of  the 
settlement  and  the  pagan  period  generally  the  custom  of 
burning  the  body  was  gradually  giving  way  before  that  of 
committing  it  entire  to  the  ground.  There  are  cemeteries 
such  as  Heworth  near  York  ;  Kingston-on-Soar  and  Newark, 
Notts  ;  Pitsford,  Northants,  and  one  of  the  cemeteries  at 
Sancton,  Yorks,  where  only  cremation  has  been  observed, 
but  more  common  is  the  mixed  cemetery  in  which  urns 
containing  ashes  and  extended  bodies  are  found  in  juxta- 
position, and  this  may  be  regarded  as  a  transition  to  the 
inhumation    cemetery   proper,    which    is   the   rule    south   of 

1  The  article  '  Bestattungswesen '  in  the  new  Real-Lexicon  der  Germa- 
niscben  Altertumskunde  may  on  this  point  be  consulted. 


TREATMENT  OF  CREMATED  REMAINS         147 

the  Thames.  Such  a  cemetery  is  at  first  equipped  with 
tomb  furniture  but  gives  place  after  a  time  to  the  burial 
place  in  which  the  institution  of  the  '  Beigaben '  is  dying 
out,  and  the  way  is  thus  being  prepared  for  the  normal 
churchyard  burial  of  the  advanced  Christian  period. 

The  remarkable  fact  must  at  the  same  time  be  emphasized 
that  in  spite  of  the  general  change  that  was  going  on  there  are 
curious  cases  that  seem  to  furnish  exceptions  to  its  operation. 
Cremation  urns  have  been  found  to  contain  late  objects 
betokening  VII,  while  in  the  case  of  two  contiguous  and 
closely  allied  Cambridgeshire  cemeteries,  at  Linton  Heath 
and  Little  Wilbraham,  the  earlier  of  the  two  is  a  purely 
inhumation  cemetery,  while  at  the  later  one,  that  last 
mentioned,  cremation  was  in  full  employment. 

When  the  body  was  burned  fragments  of  the  calcined  bones 
were  collected,  to  all  appearance  with  considerable  care,  and 
when  broken  up,  as  was  the  rule,  into  small  pieces  they  were 
placed  either  in  a  little  heap  in  a  hollow  made  in  the  ground, 
or  else  in  a  receptacle  which  in  Anglo-Saxon  cemeteries  was 
almost  invariably  of  burnt  clay.1  When  the  bones  were  laid 
on  the  ground  an  urn  was  sometimes  reversed  over  them,  and 
occasionally  as  at  King's  Newton,  Derbyshire,  the  calcined 
remains  were  placed  on  a  flat  stone  over  which  the  urn  was 
turned  mouth  downwards.  A  flat  stone  is  exceptionally 
used  to  cover  the  mouth  of  a  cinerary  urn  when  placed  in 
its  normal  position,  and  an  urn  might  stand  with  a  flat  stone 
under  it.  There  are  examples  at  King's  Newton  and 
elsewhere.  PI.  xi,  4  shows  a  small  urn  of  3^  in.  diameter, 
that  was  not  however  a  cinerary  urn,  at  Colchester,  from 
Kelvedon,  Essex,  with  the  stone  that  was  found  covering 
it.     The  urns  and  the  bones  are  of  course  always  committed 

1  At  Combe,  near  Sandwich,  Kent,  an  exceptional  discovery  was  made 
of  burnt  bones  within  a  bronze  bowl  standing  on  short  legs,  that  from  the 
accompanying  objects  seemed  to  be  of  Anglo-Saxon  date  and  provenance, 
but  some  of  these  objects  were  decidedly  late  (p.  2*2). 


148  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

to  the*ground.     In  the  case  of  the  inhumed  burial  there  were 
various  ways  of  treating  the  body  before  interment. 

In  this  connection  a  word  must  be  said  on  the  subject 
of  partial  cremation,  or  a  ceremonial,  some  would  say 
sacramental,  use  of  fire  in  the  preparation  of  a  body  for  burial 
or  in  the  act  of  burial  itself.  Some  writers,  for  example 
K.  Koenen,1  have  held  that  the  practice  of  cremation  gradually 
grew  up  out  of  a  partial  use  of  fire  for  the  purpose  of 
separating  the  flesh  from  the  bones  so  that  the  latter 
alone  might  be  preserved,  and  others  have  believed  that  fire 
was  often  or  always  applied  as  a  kind  of  symbolic  puri- 
fication even  when  no  attempt  was  made  to  consume  the 
corpse.  No  discussion  of  the  general  subject  is  possible 
here,  and  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  brief  but  admirable 
treatment  of  it  in  Dr.  Sophus  Muller's  Nordische  Altertums- 
kunde,  i,  360  f.  See  also  Canon  Greenwell's  British  Barrows, 
p.  28  and  note.  It  must  however  be  recorded  that  accounts 
of  discoveries  in  Anglo-Saxon  cemeteries  give  some  colour 
to  the  idea  that  partial  burning  was  in  use.  Thus  Faussett, 
in  reporting  on  his  discoveries  in  the  Kentish  cemeteries  in 
his  Inventorium  Sepulchrale  noticed  what  he  regarded  as 
marks  of  burning  on  about  half  of  the  whole  number  of 
nearly  400  coffins  of  which  he  signalizes  the  presence.  He 
does  not  however  fully  explain  what  he  means,  and  his 
'  marks  of  burning '  may  be  only  the  result  of  decay.  A 
better  attested  case  is  that  of  the  important  isolated  burial 
at  Broomfield,  Essex,  where  distinct  marks  of  combustion 
appeared  coexistent  with  the  remains  of  a  wooden  coffin. 
The  use  of  a  wooden  coffin  and  the  practice  of  consuming 
the  body  on  a  funeral  pyre  are  mutually  exclusive.  With 
ourselves  to-day  a  coffin  is  always  de  rigueur,  but  when 
cremation  is  contemplated  this  is  only  a  light  shell  of  deal. 
In  Anglo-Saxon  days  the  use  of  a  coffin  was  neither  universal 

1  Gefdsskunde  der  vorr'6miscbeny  romischen  und  frankiscben  Zeit  in  den 
Rbeinldndern,  Bonn,  1895,  p.  36. 


SARCOPHAGI  149 

nor  even  general,  and  it  certainly  would  be  omitted  in 
any  case  of  cremation.  Hence  marks  of  burning  in  con- 
junction with  remains  of  a  coffin  are  something  abnormal. 
A  case  of  cremation  within  a  grave,  necessarily  only  partial 
cremation,  is  thus  described  in  the  contemporary  account  of 
the  exploration  of  the  cemetery  at  Kempston,  Beds,  in  1863.1 
'Nov.  16.  .  .  .  We  found  that  we  had  come  upon  a  pit, 
which  exceeded  seven  feet  in  length.  ...  It  proved  to  be 
a  place  where  an  entire  body,  stretched  at  full  length, 
had  been  consumed  by  fire.  As  far  as  I  could  judge,  the  pit 
must  have  been  occupied  with  live  embers  up  to  a  certain 
height,  the  body  placed  carefully  thereon,  and  then  more 
material  for  burning  heaped  upon  it.  Large  branches  of 
thoroughly  charred  wood,  retaining  their  form,  and  exhibiting 
their  concentric  layers,  were  discovered  in  connection  with 
this  cremation,  above  the  human  remains.  The  head  and 
upper  part  of  the  frame  were  more  completely  burnt  than 
the  lower  extremities.'  It  may  be  noticed  that  partial 
cremation  was  observed  by  Lipp  in  ten  instances  in  the  very 
large  inhumation  cemetery  at  Keszthely  in  Hungary,2  and 
once  at  Reichenhall,  where  inhumation  was  almost  universal, 
the  same  thing  was  noted. 

The  sarcophagus  of  stone,  such  as  M.  Pilloy  found  in  a 
sepulchre  of  about  400  a.d.  at  Homblieres  near  St.  Quentin, 
and  in  one  of  about  VI  at  Jardin  Dieu  de  Cugny,  Aisne,3  or  of 
plaster  like  the  later  Merovingian  sarcophagi  of  the  Musee 
Carnavalet  at  Paris,4  is  not  a  feature  of  our  Anglo-Saxon 
cemeteries,  though  in  VII  such  things  as  the  first  were  well 
known.  The  body  of  St.  Cuthbert  and  the  body  of  Sebbi, 
king  of  the  East  Saxons,  were  placed  in  stone  coffins,  and  that 
of  the  famous  iEthelthryth,  abbess  of  Ely,  after  being  first 

1  Associated  Societies'  Reports,  1864,  p.  288. 

2  Hampe],  Altertbumer  in  Ungarn,  1,  76. 

3  Etudes,  1,  150,  51. 

4  Arts  and  Crafts  of  our  Teutonic  Forefathers,  p.  108. 


150  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

buried  in  a  wooden  coffin  was  reinterred  in  an  ancient  Roman 
one  of  white  marble  found  at  Grantchester  near  Cambridge.1 
One  instance  of  a  stone  coffin  found  in  a  pagan  Anglo-Saxon 
cemetery  is  recorded  at  West  Stow  Heath,  Suffolk,  a  place 
not  very  far  from  Ely.2  The  use  of  a  wooden  coffin  was 
however  in  some  districts  quite  frequent,  though  in  others 
unknown.3  Out  of  about  700  Kentish  interments  Faussett 
believed  that  he  detected  the  presence  of  coffins  in  nearly  400 
graves,  while  in  280  cases  he  definitely  asserts  their  absence. 
On  the  other  hand  no  coffins  are  mentioned  in  the  inventories 
of  the  cemeteries  of  Sussex,  though  they  occur  again  in  Wilts. 
Planks,  perhaps  not  put  together  in  coffin  form,  were  reported 
from  North  LufFenham,  Rutland. 

For  proof  of  the  presence  of  coffins  we  are  not  left  to  often 
doubtful  indications  in  the  traces  of  decayed  wood,  for  iron 
bolts  and  corner  pieces  that  must  have  belonged  to  coffins  at 
times  make  their  appearance.  At  Sibertswold,  Kent,  such 
iron  fittings  were  found  and  indicated  that  the  wood  had  been 
some  3  in.  thick.  A  group  of  iron  coffin  bolts  and  mounts 
from  Bifrons  in  the  Kent  Archaeological  Society's  collection  at 
Maidstone  is  shown  No.  6  on  PL  xi.  A  thickness  of  planking 
of  at  least  2^  in.  is  indicated  by  the  longest  of  the  pieces. 
PL  xviii,  2  (p.  177)  gives  a  partial  view  of  a  Wiltshire  burial 
where  the  iron  coffin  mounts  are  seen  in  situ  on  each  side 
of  the  skeleton,  which  came  from  the  earlier  Bronze  Age 
barrow  in  Ogborne  St.  Andrew  churchyard.  They  can  be  dis- 
tinguished by  their  darker  colour  from  the  bones.  The 
interesting  exhibit  is  in  the  Museum  at  Devizes.  Owing 
to  the  absence  of  relics  it  is  not  absolutely  certain  that  the 
interment  is  Saxon.  No  such  artistic  smithing  has  been  found 
attached  to  Anglo-Saxon  coffins  as  came  to  light  in  the  grave 

1  Bede,  Hist.  Eccl.,  iv,  11. 

2  Victoria  History,  Suffolk,  1,  339, 

3  '  Coffins  are  not  common  at  this  period  except  in  Kent.'  Mr.  Reginald 
Smith  in  Vict.  Hist.,  Yorks,  11,  95. 


SKELETON  OF  ANGLO-SAXON  LADY  AT  FOLKESTONE 


Foreshortened  view 


COFFINS  AND  CISTS  151 

of  a  Lombard  chieftain  at  Civezzano  in  North  Italy  and  is  in 
evidence  in  the  Museum  at  Innsbruck.1  The  custom  some- 
times observed  abroad 2  of  forming  receptacles  for  the  body 
by  hollowing  out  the  two  halves  of  split  tree  trunks,  a  practice 
of  the  Bronze  Age3  surviving  in  England  to  a  much  later 
period,  may  have  been  used  in  Saxon  burials  in  Yorkshire,4 
but  is  very  uncommon.  In  York  Museum  are  some  recept- 
acles of  the  kind  from  Selby  that  are  possibly  Anglian.  The 
example  shown  on  PI.  xix  (p.  1 80)  is  more  regularly  shaped. 

As  a  substitute  for  a  coffin  or  a  sarcophagus  slabs  or 
nodules  of  stone  are  sometimes  used.  At  Ozengell  in  Thanet 
and  in  the  neighbouring  cemetery  at  Goldston  by  Richborough, 
Kent,  the  bodies  had  been  covered  with  slabs  of  laminated 
sandstone,  from  a  bed  of  the  stone  on  the  shore  of  Pegwell 
Bay,  and  Professor  Rolleston  noticed  that  certain  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  graves  at  Frilford  were  lined  with  upright 
stones,  suggesting  in  both  cases  some  attempt  at  a  cist.  The 
same  thing  is  reported  from  Chessell  Down  in  the  Isle  of 
Wight.5  Faussett,  and  also  Hillier,  I.e.,  speak  of  large  flint 
stones  ranged  on  each  side  of  bodies  as  if  to  protect  them 
from  the  superincumbent  earth.  In  the  important  and  well- 
described  cemetery  at  Sleaford  in  Lincolnshire  a  large  number 
of  the  bodies  were  enclosed  in  stone  cists  of  rude  construction. 
At  Kempston,  Beds,  'in  certain  graves  were  rough,  unhewn 
pieces  of  limestone  which  had  apparently  been  placed  with 
care  over  the  body.' 6 

It  is  the  belief  of  the  writer  that  these  more  elaborate 
arrangements,    the    coffin,    the    partial    cist,    the    ceremonial 

1  Arts  and  Crafts,  etc.,  pi.  iv,  fig.  15,  pi.  xxiv,  fig.  95. 

2  Especially  in  Alamannic  regions,  as  at   Oberflacht,  cf.   Lindenschmit, 
Handbucb,  p.  121  f. 

3  Sophus  Muller,  Nordiscbe  Alter  tumskunde,  i,  341. 

4  Greenwell,  British  Barrows,  p.  376  note. 

5  Hillier,  Isle  of  Wight,  p.  29. 

6  C.  Roach  Smith  in  Coll.  Ant.,  vi,  2  1 8. 


152  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

cremation  if  such  existed,  were  all  quite  exceptional  and  that  in 
the  vast  majority  of  cases  all  over  the  country  the  inhumation 
of  the  body  was  a  simple  affair.  The  corpse  was  certainly 
dressed  in  the  clothes  worn  in  life,  for  the  occurrence  of 
buckles,  girdle  ornaments,  brooches,  pins,  clasps,  to  which  at 
times  fragments  of  clothing  still  adhere,  leave  no  doubt  of  this. 
The  use  of  a  shroud  with  the  vesture,  such  as  was  found  when 
the  coffin  of  St.  Cuthbert  was  opened  at  Durham  in  1827,1  is 
attested  by  occasional  remains.  For  example,  in  the  collection 
of  Mr.  Samuel  Fenton  in  London  there  is  some  decayed  cloth 
in  which  three  fibulae  are  embedded.  These  were  found  at 
the  side  of  a  skull  in  Warren  Hill  cemetery,  in  north-west 
Suffolk,  and  to  the  explorers  they  had  evidently  served  to 
fasten  the  cloth  where  it  was  wrapped  round  the  head  as  a 
winding  sheet.  Bronze  pins  have  been  found  in  situations 
which  made  the  explorer  think  they  had  been  used  to  join 
together  the  edges  of  a  cerecloth,2  and  the  former  presence  of 
an  outer  wrapping  is  made  evident  in  cases  where  the  remains 
of  some  fabric  are  found  on  arms  buried  with  the  body  or  on 
the  upper  surface  of  a  fibula.  Traces  on  the  under  surface 
would  be  those  of  the  vestment  fastened  by  the  brooch,  but 
only  an  overwrap  would  leave  its  impression  on  the  usually 
exposed  face  of  the  brooch.  An  example  from  Kempston 
cemetery,  Beds,  is  shown,  PI.  xiii,  3.     The  words  of  Ophelia 

1  They  bore  him  barefac'd  on  the  bier,' 

may  possibly  indicate  what  was  the  custom  among  our  Teutonic 
forefathers,  and  the  winding  sheet  like  the  coffin  may  have 
been  the  exception,  but  there  is  not  enough  evidence  on  which 
to  base  a  decided  opinion.  On  the  whole  the  probabilities  are 
that  the  winding  sheet  was  in  pretty  general  use.  There  are 
very  clear  traces  of  it  on  a  spear  head  at  Lewes,  which  must 
either  have  been  enclosed  in  the  same  sheet  with  the  body,  or 

1  Raine,  Saint  Cutbbert,  etc.,  Durham,  1829,  p.  33. 

2  e.g.  at  Harnham  Hill,  Wilts,  Arch.,  xxxv,  477. 


XIII 

facing  p.  153 


CROUCHING  SKELETON,  ETC. 


POSITION  OF  BODIES  IN  THE  GRAVE  153 

placed  in  a  separate  wrapping,  which  presupposes  a  similar 
treatment  for  the  corpse.  The  weapon  was  found  in  1 9 1 2  at 
Alfriston  in  Sussex.  As  a  result  of  his  long  experience  in 
excavating  cemeteries,  M.  Pilloy  believed  that  as  a  rule  the 
body  was  borne  to  the  grave  side  on  an  open  bier,1  perhaps 
covered  with  a  shroud,  and  that  this  display  of  the  corpse 
made  a  special  reason  for  furnishing  it  forth  with  all  its 
habiliments  and  jewels. 

The  usual  position  of  a  body  on  the  bier,  on  its  back  in  an 
extended  position,  as  shown  for  example  in  Egyptian  and 
Greek  funereal  pictures,  was  as  a  general  rule  retained  in  the 
final  interment,  and  the  vast  majority  of  skeletons  that  have 
come  to  light  in  our  Anglo-Saxon  cemeteries  are  lying  in  this 
position  with  the  arms  down  by  the  sides.  PI.  xn  gives  a 
view,  necessarily  foreshortened  and  so  somewhat  untrue  in 
proportion,  of  one  of  the  very  few  Anglo-Saxon  skeletons 
which  can  be  seen  in  English  Museums.  It  is  a  female  skeleton 
from  the  recently  discovered  cemetery  on  the  down  above 
Folkestone  and  is  in  the  Museum  of  that  town.  The  age  of 
the  lady  is  pronounced  to  have  been  about  forty  years.  The 
teeth  are  wonderfully  perfect  and  the  skull,  better  seen  PI.  xv,  2, 
is  well  formed  and  very  dolichocephalic.  There  were  amber 
beads  round  the  neck  and  an  iron  knife  is  by  the  side,  while 
under  the  left  hand  lies  a  key  of  which  there  will  be  question 
on  a  later  page  (p.  396). 

To  this  supine  and  extended  position  there  are  however 
noteworthy  exceptions.  The  most  frequent  of  these  is  the 
so-called  crouching  position,  PI.  xiii,  1,  in  which  the  body  lies 
on  its  side  with  the  knees  drawn  up  and  the  arms  bent  so  that 
the  cheek  would  be  pillowed  on  the  hands.  In  times  earlier 
than  the  Anglo-Saxon  this  was  a  very  common  method  for  the 
disposal  of  the  inhumed  corpse,  and  to  account  for  it  all  sorts 
of  ingenious  suggestions  have  been  put  forward.  In  connec- 
tion with  such  burials  among  the  so-called  '  pre-dynastic '  race 

1  Etudes,  1,  52. 


154  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

in  Egypt  the  question  has  recently  been  discussed  anew,  and 
the  very  reasonable  and  simple  explanation  has  been  offered 
that  the  position  is  really  the  familiar  oriental  one  of  squatting 
on  the  ground  or  sitting  on  the  heels,  a  pose  exhibited  by  many 
of  the  smaller  figures  of  retainers  and  domestics  found  in  the 
Egyptian  tombs  of  the  Old  Empire.  If  a  figure  sitting  up  in 
this  position  were  pushed  over  on  to  its  side  the  body  would 
assume  the  attitude  of  the  f  crouching  '  skeletons.  This  expla- 
nation of  the  pose  applies  well  enough  to  oriental  regions,  but 
the  practice  of  *  sitting  on  the  heels  '  is  not  one  characteristic  of 
the  West,  where  the  ground  is  as  a  rule  too  damp  and  cold. 
There  remains  the  view  which  sees  in  it  a  copy  of  the  attitude 
of  a  sleeper,  and  this  is  certainly  preferable  to  the  very  far- 
fetched one  that  it  reproduces  the  disposition  of  the  human 
embryo  in  the  womb. 

As  a  general  rule  the  crouching  position  when  it  occurs  in 
a  cemetery  is  quite  exceptional  among  the  interments,  but  it  is 
most  remarkable  to  find  that  at  Sleaford,  Lincolnshire,  among 
about  240  burials  reported  on,  with  only  about  a  dozen  excep- 
tions of  which  most  were  burials  of  children,  the  bodies  were 
in  the  doubled  up  position.1  There  are  exceptional  cases  also 
in  which  the  body  has  been  found  in  the  normally  extended 
position  but  prone  on  its  face  and  not  as  is  almost  always  the 
case  on  its  back.  Dismembered  skulls  have  been  found  several 
times  either  detached  from  the  vertebral  column  of  skeletons 
to  which  they  appear  to  belong  and  placed  between  the  thigh 
bones,  as  in  some  graves  at  White  Horse  Hill,  Berks,  or  else 
placed  in  a  grave  as  an  adjunct  to  a  complete  skeleton,  of 
which  the  head  is  in  the  normal  position.  Plural  interments, 
where  two  or  more  bodies  are  laid  in  the  same  receptacle,  are 
not  uncommon,  but  the  systematic  disposal  of  corpses  in  a 
cemetery  in  two  or  more  layers  one  above  the  other  is  perhaps 
more  frequent  abroad  than  in  our  own  country,  though 
instances  of  it  occur  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  region.  This  *  super- 
1  Archaeologia,  l,  385. 


XIV 

facing  p.    155 


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ARRANGEMENT  OF  THE  GRAVES  155 

inhumation,'  as  it  is  called,  is  inevitable  in  the  case  of  secondary- 
interments  in  earlier  barrows,  but  it  is  noticed  also  when  both 
layers  are  Teutonic  of  the  migration  period.  The  possible 
significance  from  the  social  point  of  view  of  all  these  phe- 
nomena will  be  noticed  in  the  sequel  (p.  188  f.)  but  these 
are  fascinating  by-paths  into  which  it  is  not  advisable  to 
wander  far. 

V.  The  arrangement  and  the  forms  of  the  graves. 

In  cremation  cemeteries  the  urns  are  generally  found  regu- 
larly placed  in  rows,  as  was  the  case  at  Sancton  and  Heworth, 
Yorks  ;  Newark  and  Kingston-on-Soar,  Notts ;  Saltburn-on- 
Sea,  Yorks,  where  they  were  arranged  in  parallel  lines  that  ran 
north  and  south  and  were  about  6  yards  apart  ;  and  Ipswich, 
where  five  urns  were  in  a  single  line  about  1  ft.  from  each 
other.  This  was  not  however  always  the  case,  for  at  Kettering 
*  no  order  had  apparently  been  maintained,' l  though  the  urns 
were  sometimes  in  groups  ;  and  at  Brighthampton,  Oxford- 
shire, Akerman  found  the  cremation  urns  scattered  promiscu- 
ously among  the  graves.2  The  urns  as  we  have  seen  were 
sometimes  covered  with  flat  stones. 

The  arrangement  of  the  typical  Anglo-Saxon  inhumation 
cemetery  is  curiously  like  that  of  a  modern  graveyard  without 
its  tombstones.  As  a  rule  the  denizens  of  it  were  interred 
singly  and  the  receptacle  for  the  body  was  cut  so  as  to  take  it 
at  full  length,  some  arrangement  being  often  made  for  giving 
a  slight  elevation  to  the  head  as  if  on  a  couch,  a  small  pro- 
tuberance of  the  material  of  the  bed  of  the  grave  being  left,  or 
a  pillow-like  stone  introduced.  Two  illustrations  are  given  on 
Plates  xiv  and  xv  exhibiting  the  aspect  of  skeletons  when  the 
superincumbent  earth  has  been  removed.  As  a  rule,  though 
not  always,  the  graves  are  arranged  in  parallel  rows,  as  is  indi- 
cated by  the  German  term  '  Reihengraber,'  but  there  are  always 

1  Journal  of  Northamptonshire  Natural  History  Society,  xu,  123. 

2  Archaeologia,  xxxvm,  85. 


156  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

irregularities,  and  in  most  cemeteries  there  are  parts  in  which 
the  disposition  of  the  bodies  is  less  formal  than  in  others.  At 
Sleaford,  Lincolnshire,  the  explorer  noted  the  arrangement  of 
the  graves  in  rows  parallel  to  the  southern  limit  of  the  ceme- 
tery, the  graves  being  about  10  ft.  apart.  This  held  good 
for  about  two-thirds  of  the  whole  space,  beyond  which  the 
interments  were  very  irregular.  When  the  rows  are  regular 
the  distances  between  them  may  range  from  about  18  in.  to 
4  or  5  ft.  In  cases  where  each  grave  is  under  a  tumulus,  the 
intervals  must  necessarily  be  of  some  substantial  width.  The 
graves  vary  in  depth,  as  a  rule  from  about  ij  ft.  to  3  ft.,  and 
it  is  most  usual  to  find  that  the  supersoil  has  been  removed 
and  the  body  laid  either  on  the  upper  surface  of  the  underlying 
stratum  or  in  a  slight  excavation  made  in  this.  The  plan  of 
the  single  grave  is  generally  rectangular  and  the  rhomboidal 
shape  in  which  greater  width  is  given  where  the  shoulders 
come  has  been  but  little  noticed  by  explorers  in  this  country. 
One  example  occurred  in  grave  4  at  Sarre,  Kent.  PL  xiv  shows 
the  aspect  of  the  central  and  most  regular  portion  of  the 
cemetery  at  Saffron  Walden,  Essex.  It  is  thus  described  in 
the  Report  by  Mr.  H.  Ecroyd  Smith.1  'Over  the  area  named 
the  graves  are  distributed  most  diversely.  To  the  N.E.'  (the 
portion  shown  on  the  plate)  l  there  has  been  an  evident  inten- 
tion of  interment  in  line,  but  the  rows,  four  in  number,  are 
neither  straight  nor  of  equal  length  ;  their  direction  is  pretty 
nearly  N.W.  and  S.E.  Each  of  the  graves  here  being  fairly 
and  distinctly  cut  for  a  single  body,  one  may  regard  this 
portion  as  the  cemetery  proper.'  The  view,  PI.  xiv,  makes 
this  plain.2  Mr.  Ecroyd  Smith  goes  on,  *  To  the  southward 
the  skeletons  mostly  were  found  in  isolated  spots,  with  or 
without  a  grave.    At  the  extreme  southern  corner,  still  greater 

1  An  Ancient  Cemetery  at  Saffron  Walden,  by  H.  Ecroyd  Smith,  Col- 
chester, W.  Wiles,  n.d. 

2  For  permission  to  reproduce  this  view  thanks  are  due  to  the  authorities 
of  the  Saffron  Walden  Museum,  through  Mr.  Guy  Maynard,  Curator. 


XV 

facing  p.  157 


PORTION  OF  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY,  DOVER  HILL,  FOLKESTONE 


'PILLOW  UNDER  HEAD  OF  THE  FOLKESTONE  SKELETON 


SHAPES  AND  SIZES  OF  GRAVES  157 

want  of  order,  in  fact  extreme  confusion,  was  apparent.  One 
large  rectangular  pit  or  cist  contained  the  remains  of  several 
bodies  which  seemed  to  have  been  hastily  or  carelessly  de- 
posited ;  smaller  ones  contained  one  or  more  skeletons  in 
similar  condition.' 

PI.  xv,  1,  shows  a  portion  of  the  recently  excavated 
cemetery  on  Dover  Hill,  Folkestone.1  Whereas  at  Saffron 
Walden,  PL  xiv,  the  bodies  are  laid  in  distinct  excavations  in 
the  chalk  subsoil,  here  at  Folkestone  the  supersoil  has  been 
removed  and  the  bodies  merely  laid  on  the  surface  of  the 
chalk.  In  this  case  a  small  projection  of  the  chalk  has  been 
left  to  serve  as  a  pillow  for  the  skull,  and  PI.  xv,  2  shows  this 
in  the  case  of  the  skeleton  in  the  Folkestone  Museum  of 
which  a  view  was  given  on  PI.  xn. 

The  regular  rock-cut  tomb  holding  the  corpse  as  in  a 
sarcophagus,  as  in  the  example  at  Wittislingen  in  Suabia 
(p.  541),  can  hardly  be  said  to  occur,  but  there  was  one  instance 
at  Barlaston  in  Staffordshire,  where  a  grave  7  ft.  long  by  2  ft. 
wide  '  was  cut  in  the  solid  red  sandstone  rock.' 2  The  objects 
in  the  grave  proved  it  to  be  Anglo-Saxon.  Large  sepulchral 
cavities  have  sometimes  been  found  excavated  in  the  chalk. 
Grave  No.  4  at  Sarre,  very  richly  furnished,  measured  10  ft. 
by  about  4  and  was  4  ft.  6  in.  deep.  At  Bourne  Park,  Kent, 
were  large  excavations.  The  cavities  (p.  720)  mentioned  may 
be  taken  as  examples  of  graves  far  too  large  for  a  single  skeleton, 
for  they  measured  about  14  ft.  in  length  by  a  width  of  6  or  7 
and  a  depth  of  3.  They  do  not  seem  to  have  been  actually 
used  as  might  be  expected  for  multiform  burials  but  for  single 
interments,  and  this  agrees  with  what  has  been  noticed 
about  the  burials  in  the  earlier  British  barrows  where  a  huge 

1  This  photograph  was  very  kindly  furnished  by  Mr.  A.  E.  Nichols, 
Borough  Engineer  of  Folkestone,  who  carefully  supervised  the  excavations 
of  the  cemetery  accidentally  laid  bare  in  connection  with  operations  for 
the  widening  of  the  Dover  road. 

2  Jewitt,  Grave-mounds  and  their  Contents,  Lond.,  1870,  p.  258. 


158  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

mound  may  contain  a  single  interment.1  As  a  rule  however 
such  large  graves  have  contained  several  bodies.  The  '  large 
rectangular  pit  '  with  remains  of  several  bodies,  at  Saffron 
Walden,  has  just  been  mentioned.  The  most  remarkable  case 
that  has  been  recorded  of  plural  entombments  occurred  at 
Stowting  in  Kent,  where  in  a  sort  of  vault  or  pot  of  circular 
form,  nearly  9  ft.  in  diameter  and  4  ft.  7  in.  in  depth,  six 
female  skeletons  were  found  that  had  been  apparently  all 
deposited  at  the  same  time.  At  Shoeburyness  in  Essex,  at 
Newport  Pagnell,  Bucks,  at  Cuddesdon,  Oxfordshire,  skeletons, 
in  the  last  two  cases  with  Anglo-Saxon  tomb  furniture,  have 
been  found  arranged  in  a  circle  with  the  heads  pointing  out- 
wards. This  disposition  of  bodies  in  a  ring  reminds  us  of 
the  arrangement  of  the  Bronze  Age  burials  at  Broadstairs, 
previously  noticed  (p.  132). 

VI.  Orientation  and  tomb  furniture. 

It  is  convenient  to  take  these  together  as  they  both  involve 
the  question  of  Pagan  and  Christian.  Tomb  furniture  has 
already  been  noticed  as  an  essentially  pagan  institution,  based 
on  traditional  ideas  about  the  living  and  the  dead  or  the  life 
beyond  the  grave  that  have  no  place  in  the  scheme  of  the 
Christian  who  brought  nothing  into  the  world  and  will  carry 
nothing  out.  Its  appearance  in  Christian  sepulchres  is 
abnormal  and  only  to  be  explained  on  the  ground  of  survival 
or  overlap.  The  case  of  orientation  may  appear  quite  different 
as  the  custom  is  ingrained  in  Christian  societies,  but  in 
principle  there  is  little  to  choose  between  the  two  institutions. 
If  in  practice  orientation  be  of  established  Christian  use,  it  is 
none  the  less  distinctly  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  a  religion  that 
refuses  to  apply  the  categories  of  time  and  space  to  the  divine. 
4  Neither  in  this  mountain   nor  in  Jerusalem,'  but  c in  spirit 

1  Canon  Greenwell  remarks  {British  Barrows^  p.  118)  'in  the  largest 
barrow  I  have  opened  on  the  Wolds,  the  primary  burial,  over  which  the 
whole  mound  had  been  raised,  was  that  of  an  infant.' 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  ORIENTATION  159 

and  truth,'  '  the  true  worshippers  shall  worship.'  To  turn 
churches  or  graves  in  one  direction  rather  than  in  another  was 
never  an  obligation  upon  Christians,  and  was  merely  taken 
over  by  them  as  part  of  the  traditional  apparatus  of  the  older 
religions,  both  Jewish  and  pagan.  This  taking  over  was  cer- 
tainly not  very  early,  for  in  the  Roman  catacombs  the  bodies 
are  disposed  in  accordance  with  the  direction  of  the  ambula- 
crum in  the  walls  of  which  are  cut  the  niches  that  hold  them, 
or  depend  for  their  position  on  the  accident  of  their  location 
in  the  side  or  end  walls  of  a  cubiculum.  The  direction  of 
the  ambulacrum  depends  for  the  most  part  on  its  alignment 
by  the  course  of  some  Roman  'road,  which  may  run  in  any 
direction,  and  the  ambulacrum  fixes  the  place  of  the  cubiculum 
that  opens  out  of  it. 

Orientation  undoubtedly  had  its  first  origin  in  the  respect 
paid  to  the  sun  in  ancient  cults.  The  Greek  temple  and  the 
Egyptian  tomb  have  as  a  rule  their  disposition  determined  by 
the  rising  and  setting  of  the  great  celestial  luminary.  The 
Jews  of  the  Dispersion  gave  a  more  rational  turn  to  the 
traditional  custom  and  it  was  considered  orthodox  to  set  the 
synagogues  with  their  long  axis  not  towards  the  rising  sun  but 
towards  Jerusalem,  so  that  a  synagogue  in  northern  Palestine 
would  be  turned  to  the  south,  one  in  Mesopotamia  towards 
the  west,  an  Alexandrian  house  of  prayer  to  the  east.  Daniel 
prayed  with  his  windows  open  towards  the  holy  city.  What 
principle  determines  or  should  determine  the  orientation  of 
Christian  churches  is  not  an  easy  question  to  answer.  In  our 
own  country  it  makes  no  practical  difference  whether  Jerusalem 
or  the  sunrise  be  supposed  to  prescribe  the  axial  line,  but  early 
in  XIX  in  the  case  of  a  church  in  India  it  was  disputed 
whether  it  should  affect  in  its  direction  Palestine  or  the  east.1 
In  the  matter  of  burials,  so  far  as  graves  in  churchyards  are 

1  Notes  and  Queries,  5th  Ser.,  11,  p.  352.  This  reference  is  taken  from 
an  interesting  chapter  on  '  The  Orientation  of  Churches '  in  Mr.  Walter 
Johnson's  Byways  in  British  Archaeology,  Camb.,  191 2. 


160  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

concerned,  their  alignment  is  in  practice  governed  by  that 
of  the  walls  of  the  church,  but  if  the  question  were  asked  why 
in  principle  should  the  axis  of  the  grave  take  one  direction 
rather  than  another,  the  answer  would  be  as  uncertain  as  when 
the  same  query  has  been  suggested  about  the  church.  In 
the  ancient  solar  religions  the  east  is  the  home  of  life  because 
the  sun  rises  there,  and  Durandus  of  Mende  in  XIII  '  pre- 
scribes orientation  in  Christian  burials  on  this  same  traditional 
ground.  £  So  ought  a  man  to  be  buried,'  he  writes,  '  that  his 
head  may  be  to  the  west  and  that  he  direct  his  feet  to  the  east, 
wherewith  even  in  his  very  position  he  may  be  as  one  that 
prayeth,  and  may  give  sign  that  he  is  in  readiness  to  hasten 
from  the  setting  to  the  rising,  from  the  world  to  eternity.' 
Some  ecclesiastical  authorities  strove  to  disguise  the  paganism 
of  this  idea  by  the  explanation  that  at  His  second  coming 
Christ  would  appear  in  the  east,  and  that  the  dead  should  be 
so  placed  that  they  would  rise  with  their  faces  towards  Him, 
but  it  is  obvious  that  this  is  the  same  old  idea  under  another 
form.  Christ  is  to  appear  in  the  east  only  because  that  is  the 
home  of  life  or  more  prosaically  the  place  of  sunrise.  It  is 
clear  therefore  that,  play  with  the  notion  as  we  may,  orienta- 
tion is  just  as  pagan  an  institution  as  tomb  furniture,  and  only 
differs  from  it  in  that  the  Christians  took  it  to  themselves  and 
made  it  a  piece  of  ritual  orthodoxy.  So  effectively  has  this 
been  accomplished  that  it  is  really  looked  upon  as  something 
specially  Christian,  and  writers  on  our  early  Teutonic  ceme- 
teries commonly  so  regard  it. 

If  the  east  be  the  sacred  quarter  to  Christians  at  any  rate 
in  western  Europe,  there  is  some  ground  for  the  belief  that  the 
north  was  similarly  holy  in  the  eyes  of  the  Teutonic  invaders 
of  the  Empire.  The  classical  passage  in  mediaeval  literature 
relied  on  as  evidence  for  this  occurs  in  Reineke  Fuchs,  and  is 
appealed  to  by  Jacob  Grimm  in  support  of  his  assertion  that 
in  prayer  and  penitence  Christians  turned  to  the  east,  while  in 
1  Rationale  Divinorum  Officiorum,  vn,  xxxv,  38. 


ORIENTATION  AT  HARTLEPOOL  161 

prayer  and  sacrifice  pagans  looked  towards  the  north.1  In  the 
romance  in  question  the  fox  is  represented  as  turning  in  the 
Christian  direction  while  the  wolf  is  content  with  the  heathen 
orientation  towards  the  north.  It  would  be  an  interesting 
trait  in  the  early  Teutonic  character  if  we  could  be  assured 
that  the  people  sought  instinctively  their  sacred  region  in  the 
North  whence  came  their  spirit  of  adventure,  their  romance, 
and  all  that  marked  them  off  from  the  clear-sighted  self- 
centred  classicists  of  the  South,  but  this  item  in  the  creed  of 
Teutonic  paganism  is  certainly  not  a  very  prominent  one  or  it 
would  have  left  a  more  decided  mark  in  literature.  It  may 
be  said  here  once  for  all  that  we  must  not  expect  consistency  in 
beliefs  of  the  kind  or  in  the  practices  dependent  on  them. 
This  applies  both  to  orientation  and  to  tomb  furniture.  In 
each  case  there  is  some  reason  of  a  religious  kind  for  the 
observance,  and  this  reason,  if  strong  enough  to  determine  a 
general  practice,  might  be  expected  to  operate  universally,  so 
that  superstitious  dread  of  the  consequences  of  breaking  a 
sacred  tradition  would  keep  performance  uniform.  This  is  not 
however  the  case  with  either  institution. 

In  the  matter  of  the  Christian  graveyard  it  is  a  curious 
fact  that  in  this  country  its  history  begins  with  a  flagrant 
example  of  the  breach  of  the  supposed  inviolable  rule.  We 
saw  previously  that  the  earliest  regular  Christian  cemeteries  of 
the  Saxon  period  were  monastic.  Such  an  early  conventual 
cemetery  of  VII  or  the  first  half  of  VIII  was  laid  bare  in  1833 
and  subsequent  years  at  Hartlepool,  the  first  monastic  seat  of 
the  famous  Hild  of  Whitby.  About  a  dozen  bodies  were 
found  accompanied  with  memorial  slabs  on  which  crosses  and 
Christian  inscriptions  were  carefully  incised.2  These  bodies 
were  however  laid  in  the  direction  north  and  south  instead 
of  in  the  orthodox  fashion  with  their  feet  to  the  east.     This 

1  Deuticbe  Mythologie,  Gottingen,  1854,  1,  30. 

2  The  discoveries  have  been  often   described,  e.g.,  by  C.  C.  Hodges  in 
The  Reliquary,  Jan.  1894,  and  again  in  the  Victoria  History,  Durham,  1. 

Ill  L 


162  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

curious  anomaly  is  a  reminder  that  the  caution  given  above 
should  always  be  borne  in  mind. 

In  determining  heathen  interments  ideas  connected  with 
the  sun  as  well  as  those  haunting  the  sacred  North  played  their 
part,  and  it  must  be  remembered  that  though  sun-worship  is 
not  so  much  in  evidence  in  northern  religions  as  it  is  for 
example  in  that  of  Egypt,  yet  there  exists  at  Copenhagen  a 
striking  monument  of  the  Early  Bronze  Age  in  Denmark 
evincing  a  cultus  of  the  sun,  in  the  form  of  a  gold-plated  disc 
representing  that  luminary  upon  a  car  drawn  by  a  horse, 
PI.  xvi,  i  (p.  171).  It  need  not  surprise  us  therefore  to  find 
pre-Christian  graves  disposed  like  the  orthodox  Christian  ones 
with  the  axis  running  east  and  west.  In  the  Later  Stone  Age 
the  long  barrows  were  constantly  placed  with  their  major  axis 
approximately  in  this  direction.1  Early  Bronze  Age  inhuma- 
tion burials  in  round  barrows  in  which  the  body  is  laid  in 
a  crouching  position  afford  evidence  that  it  was  disposed 
with  reference  to  the  sun,  for  Canon  Greenwell  has  noticed 
that  '  the  habit  was  generally  to  place  the  body  in  the  grave 
facing  the  sun,' 2  and  with  this  end,  as  the  crouching  body 
was  always  laid  on  its  side,  it  was  placed  on  the  right  side 
when  the  head  pointed  west,  on  the  left  side  when  it  pointed 
east,  so  that  in  each  case  the  face  would  be  turned  to  the 
sunny  southern  quarter.  Burials  of  the  Later  Bronze  Age 
were  as  we  have  already  seen  as  a  rule  cremated  burials  in 
connection  with  which  the  question  of  orientation  does  not 
arise.  In  the  Early  Iron  Age  again  the  numerous  inhumation 
burials  in  the  Marne  district  of  Gaul,  where  the  body  is  laid  at 
full  length,  are  very  commonly  oriented  so  that  the  feet  are  to 
the  east.3    In  the  Later  Iron  Age,  that  of  the  Teutonic  migra- 

1  Guide  to  the  Antiquities  of  the  Bronze  Age,   British   Museum,   1904, 
p.  16  ;  Greenwell,  British  Barrows,  Oxford,  1877,  p.  480. 

2  ibid.,  p.  26. 

3  Guide  to  the  Antiquities  of  the  Early  Iron  Age,  British  Museum,  1905, 
p.  58  f. 


ORIENTATION  ON  THE  CONTINENT  163 

tions,  the  burials  found  to  the  north  and  east  of  the  Rhine 
that  are  certainly  of  pagan  date  are  to  a'  great  extent  by  crema- 
tion and  furnish  no  evidence  as  to  the  practice  of  orientation. 
A  number  of  Teutonic  inhumation  cemeteries  however  have 
been  explored  within  the  limits  of  the  Empire,  about  which  it 
is  antecedently  probable  that  they  were  at  any  rate  at  first  laid 
out  by  people  uninfluenced  by  Christianity,  and  it  is  interesting 
to  examine  from  this  point  of  view  the  disposition  within  them 
of  the  bodies.  It  is  not  safe  to  go  for  illustrative  cases  to  the 
well-described  cemeteries  of  Hungary,  for  the  Goths  in  the 
ancient  Moesia  received  Christianity  at  a  very  early  date, 
and  Christian  influence  may  everywhere  have  been  at  work.1 
Alamannic  cemeteries  offer  more  promising  material,  for  in 
this  region  Christianity  was  established  comparatively  late,  and 
early  in  VII  St.  Gall  found  the  people  round  the  Lake  of 
Constance  still  heathen.  In  these  cemeteries  the  east  and 
west  direction  is  almost  universal,  and  certain  of  them  are 
regarded  as  of  pagan  date.  Some  of  the  260  graves  explored 
at  Gammertingen  north  of  the  Boden  See  about  19002  had 
Christian  objects  in  them  and  the  cemetery  is  comparatively 
late,  but  the  explorers  in  1 845  of  Oberflacht  in  Wiirtemberg  3 
argued  from  the  carved  serpents  on  the  tree-trunk  coffins  that 
the  cemetery  was  a  heathen  one,  and  the  eastward  orientation 
was  there  generally  observed.  Another  example  is  the  cemetery 
explored  near  Ulm  in  the  middle  of  XIX,4  where  the  skeletons 
to  the  number  of  more  than  1 50  all  had  their  feet  to  the  east, 
while  as  proof  of  the  pagan  character  of  the  interments  the 
explorer  pointed  to  the  fact  that  there  was  positive  evidence 
in  the  case  of  a  good  proportion,  one  eighth,  of  the  interments 

1  '  As  well  in  monuments  as  in  historical  traditions  the  traces  of 
Christianity  can  be  followed  in  Hungary  during  this  whole  period,'  Hampel, 
Alterthiimer  in  Ungarn,  1,  68. 

2  Groebels,  Der  Reihengr'dberfund  von  Gammertingen. 

3  Menzel,  Die  Heidengrdber  am  Lupfen  bei  Oberjlacbt,  Stuttgart,  1 847. 

4  Hassler,  Das  Alemann'ucbe  Todtenfeld  bei  Ulm,  Ulm,  1 860. 


164  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

that  the  body  had  been  burned.  Cremation  is  so  rare  in  the 
south  German  cemeteries  that  its  appearance  is  very  significant 
of  an  early  period  ;  it  must  be  admitted  however  in  the  case  of 
Ulm,  that  one  object  found,  an  enriched  spear  head  now  at 
Berlin,1  was  ornamented  in  a  late  fashion  and  was  marked  with 
the  device  of  a  cross  in  a  distinctively  Christian  form,  so  that 
the  date  must  be  considered  doubtful. 

Among  Frankish  cemeteries  the  famous  Ripuarian  grave- 
yard at  Selzen  in  Rhine-Hesse  is  of  little  avail  for  in  two  of 
the  graves  coins  of  Justinian  of  the  middle  third  of  VI  made 
their  appearance,  and  we  can  have  more  confidence  in  the  early 
date  of  a  group  of  cemeteries  of  the  Salian  Franks  in  Belgium 
and  north-eastern  France,  of  which  Samson,  Furfooz,  and  in  part 
Pry  and  Eprave  in  the  former  country,  Vermand  and  Abbeville 
(Homblieres)  in  the  latter,  may  be  taken  as  typical.  These  date 
before  the  incursion  in  force  of  the  Franks  into  Gaul  under 
Clovis,  and  may  be  regarded  as  entirely  pagan  in  their  laying 
out.  It  is  true  that  in  the  two  last-named  burying  grounds 
reliefs  illustrating  Christian  subjects  and  glass  vessels  with 
similar  devices  came  to  light,  but  there  is  good  reason  to 
ascribe  these  to  the  Christianized  Gallo-Roman  population,  and 
to  date  the  burials  not  later  than  about  the  year  400  when  the 
Franks  were  still  pagan.  Now  at  Abbeville  and  Vermand 
M.  Pilloy  states2  that  the  usual  direction  of  the  bodies  was 
north  and  south.  At  Pry  in  the  province  of  Namur  in 
Belgium  M.  Becquet  reported3  that  in  the  older  part,  of  V, 
called  '  Tombois,'  where  there  was  no  sign  of  Christianity, 
though  there  was  no  regular  rule  of  orientation  yet  the 
direction  north  and  south  was  most  usual.  In  the  early  part 
at  Eprave  where  cremated  burials  were  mixed  with  inhumed 
ones  the  same  authority  reports4  that  in  V  and  VI  no  very 
fixed  rule  was  followed,  but  the  later  graves  lay  all  from  east 

1  Figured  by  Lindenschmit,  Handbuch,  p.  167.  2  Etudes,  1,  279. 

3  Annates  de  la  Societe  Arch'eologique  de  Namur,  xix,  311. 

4  ibid.,  p.  447. 


SUMMARY  ON  ORIENTATION  165 

to  west.  Later  graves  at  Pry  of  VI  or  the  beginning  of  VII 
lay  east  and  west,  but  it  was  believed  that  they  were  pagan.1 
At  Spontin,  another  early  Belgic  cemetery,  where  162  graves 
were  examined  in  i860  and  earlier,  they  were  nearly  all  in  the 
direction  just  indicated,  but  it  is  also  noted  that  many  bodies 
lay  with  the  feet  not  to  the  east  but  to  the  west,2  which  looks 
like  a  misunderstanding  on  the  part  of  new  converts  of  the 
Christian  scheme.  Later  continental  cemeteries  of  Christian 
date  have  the  regular  east  and  west  orientation.  Such  are  the 
Lombard  cemetery  of  Castel  Trosino  near  Ascoli  of  about 
600  a.d.,  and  those  of  Charnay  (Burgundian),  and  Herpes  on 
the  Charente  of  Frankish  origin.  M.  Boulanger  claims  the 
east  and  west  position  as  universal  among  the  Franks  and 
believes  that  it  obtained  long  before  their  conversion,3  while 
on  the  other  hand  W.  M.  Wylie,  the  explorer  of  Fairford  ceme- 
tery, was  of  the  opinion  that  feet  to  the  north  '  would  seem  to 
have  been  the  prevailing  pagan  practice  of  Teutons  in  general,'4 
and  this  it  will  be  noted  is  the  view  of  the  present  writer. 

On  the  basis  of  these  facts  and  other  evidence  which  it 
would  be  tedious  to  cite  the  following  conclusions  may  be 
formulated.  Among  pagan  Teutons  who  practised  inhumation 
the  traditional  solar  orientation  of  the  body  in  the  grave  was 
in  some  cases  still  maintained,  while  at  the  same  time  the  idea 
of  facing  the  north  was  among  some  communities  a  deter- 
mining factor.  Among  converted  Teutons  the  eastward 
orientation  may  be  regarded  as  almost  universal  though  there 
are  some  curious  instances  of  a  breach  of  the  general  rule. 
The  caution  already  given  against  assuming  too  great  a 
consistency  in  these  burial  practices  may  be  again  emphasized 
by  reference  to  the  important  Bavarian  cemetery  at  Reichenhall 
with  its  525  investigated  graves  dating  from  the  beginning 
of  VI  to  about  the  beginning  of  VIII,  and  exhibiting  Christian 

1  Annales  de  la  Societe  Archeologique  de  Namur,  xvn,  482. 

2  ibid.,  viii,  327  f.  3  Le  Mobilier  Funeraire,  Introduction,  p.  xxxii. 
4  Arcbaeologia,  xxxiv,  224. 


1 66       THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

influence  only  in  the  later  interments.  Here  Herr  von 
Chlingensperg-Berg's  elaborate  plan  of  the  graves  bears  out 
his  statement  that  '  the  dead  were  disposed  in  all  sorts  of 
different  directions.' *  There  are  not  only  north-south  and 
east-west  interments  but  the  whole  compass  is  boxed  in  the 
various  alignments. 

Corresponding  facts  meet  us  in  Anglo-Saxon  England,  and 
it  may  be  noted  that  just  as  the  phenomena  under  review  agree 
generally  over  the  whole  Teutonic  area  of  the  Continent,  so  in 
our  own  country  they  are  Anglo-Saxon  phenomena  in  the  most 
general  sense,  and  there  is  little  difference  in  principle  in  what 
we  find  in  inhumation  cemeteries  in  Jutish  Kent,  in  Saxon 
Berkshire,  in  East  Anglia,  the  Midlands,  or  the  North.  To 
correspond  with  Reichenhall  we  have  the  very  important 
cemetery  at  Kempston,  Beds,  in  which  there  was  *  no  direct 
attempt  at  orientation  '  but  bodies  were  '  deposited  at  all  angles 
with  one  another,  directed  to  almost  every  point  of  the 
compass.' 8  In  Britain  the  easterly  orientation  is  particularly 
common,  especially  in  the  south,  and  it  is  impossible  to  ascribe 
this  always  to  the  influence  of  Christianity.  Take  the  example 
of  the  extensive  cemetery  at  Sarre,  in  Thanet,  Kent.  In  all 
but  a  few  cases  out  of  the  272  interments  described  the  feet 
pointed  to  the  east,  but  in  a  considerable  number  of  the  graves 
very  early  objects  made  their  appearance  and  these  graves  must 
have  been  laid  out  in  pre-Christian  times.  It  is  curious  that  in 
one  of  the  earliest,  No.  148,  though  it  ranged  east  and  west, 
the  body  was  placed  with  the  feet  pointing  westward  and  not 
to  the  orthodox  quarter.  In  Sussex  the  east  and  west  orienta- 
tion with  feet  to  the  east  is  almost  universal  but,  especially  in 
view  of  the  late  conversion  of  this  region,  we  must  regard  the 
cemeteries  in  general  as  pagan.  The  northward  position  is 
nowhere  carried  out  so  consistently  as  it  is  for  example  at 
Abbeville  (Homblieres),  but  over  our  whole  area  it  is  at  times 

1  Das  Gr'dberfeld  von  Reichenhall,  p.  43. 

2  Associated  Societies*  Reports,  1864,  p.  271. 


THE  NORTHWARD  POSITION  167 

strikingly  in  evidence,  and  seems  to  bear  out  the  explanation 
offered  of  it  in  what  has  gone  before.  In  Sussex,  and  also  in 
Surrey  where  the  majority  of  the  burials  appear  to  be  pre- 
Christian,  the  feet  are  generally  to  the  east,  but  where  this  is 
not  the  case  they  almost  invariably  point  to  the  north.  At 
Brighton  half  a  dozen  skeletons  that  from  the  abundance  of 
the  arms  buried  with  them  must  have  been  early  were  found  on 
the  hill  above  the  railway  station,  and  these  old  warriors  all 
faced  the  north.  An  isolated  interment  at  Long  Wittenham, 
Berks,  found  ten  years  before  the  systematic  exploration  of  the 
cemetery,  revealed  a  warrior  equipped  with  sword,  spear,  and 
shield,  and  of  him  as  of  Macaulay's  Roman  it  might  be  said 

'  North  looked  he  long  and  hard.' 

At  Stowting,  Kent,  though  the  majority  of  the  bodies  lay 
approximately  east  and  west,  some  pointed  to  the  north,  and 
these,  we  learn,  were  from  their  abundant  tomb  furniture  the 
most  interesting,  but  lest  we  attach  too  much  importance  to 
this  it  may  be  added  that  at  Gilton,  where  the  prevailing 
orientation  was  east  and  west  and  exceptional  graves  ran  north 
and  south,  these  last  were  as  a  rule  very  poorly  and  not  richly 
furnished.  To  return  to  Stowting,  that  wonderful  group  of 
six  female  skeletons  in  a  single  grave  were  there  found  lying 
north  and  south,  and  with  them  there  was  rich  and  copious 
tomb  furniture  of  a  pronounced  early  type.  At  Glen  Parva 
south  of  Leicester  a  woman's  skeleton  accompanied  by  rich 
tomb  furniture  lay  with  feet  to  the  north.  Here  the  long 
brooches  with  detached  knobs  betoken  the  first  half  of  VI. 
Feet  to  the  north  was  the  almost  universal  rule  in  the 
Gloucestershire  cemetery  at  Fairford  about  which  Mr.  Wylie 
who  explored  it  uses  the  words  '  these  Fairford  graves  .  .  . 
would  seem  to  bear  a  very  early  date.' 1  Equally  remarkable 
are  the  phenomena  of  orientation  at  the  great  Lincolnshire 
cemetery  at   Sleaford.     Here  as  was   noticed  above  (p.  154) 

1  Fairford  Graves,  by  William  Michael  Wylie,  B.A.,  Oxford,  1852,  p.  22. 


168  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

the  bodies  were  laid  in  the  crouching  position  and  on  their 
sides.  It  was  noted  by  the  careful  explorer,  Mr.  G.  W. 
Thomas,1  that  they  rested  on  the  left  side  with  heads  to  the 
west  so  that  the  face  would  be  turned  towards  the  north,  but 
there  was  one  exception  in  which  the  head  was  turned  east- 
wards and  in  this  case  the  body  rested  on  the  right  side  and 
accordingly  still  faced  the  supposed  sacred  quarter. 

A  phenomenon  observed  at  Bifrons,  Kent,  casts  a  light  on 
the  orientation  question.  The  cemetery  is  on  the  whole  an 
early  one  and  it  differs  markedly  from  the  many  somewhat 
later  Kentish  graveyards  of  its  class  in  that  the  rule  for  orienta- 
tion is  not  east  and  west  but  north  and  south.  There  is  how- 
ever a  topographical  reason  for  this  in  the  fact  that  the  graves 
are  dug  on  an  incline  the  slope  of  which  is  from  east  to  west, 
so  that  excavation  was  easier  in  a  direction  at  right  angles  to 
the  fall  of  the  ground  where  each  grave  would  lie  level  in  the 
direction  of  its  length.  If  this  were  the  determining  cause  it 
shows  that  the  obligation  to  turn  graves  in  any  particular 
direction  was  not  rigidly  observed,  and  prepares  us  to  meet 
with  many  cases  where  neither  of  the  orthodox  orientations 
prevails.  Thus  at  Marston  St.  Lawrence  in  Northants  the  feet 
were  to  the  north-east  and  the  same  was  the  case  at  Long 
Wittenham,  Berks,  at  Barrington,  Cambs,  and  also  at  Ipswich, 
and  at  Chessell  Down  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  while  at  Duston, 
Northants,  they  pointed  south-east. 

The  question  has  been  raised  whether  these  partial 
deviations  on  either  side  from  the  true  east  are  due  to 
the  taking  of  observations  at  one  season  of  the  year  or  at  one 
hour  of  the  day  more  than  at  another,  but  upon  questions  of 
this  kind  there  is  no  space  to  enter.  The  casual  occurrence  of 
feet  to  the  south  in  a  north  and  south  grave,  or  feet  to  the  west 
in  one  with  Christian  orientation,  may  be  merely  accidental. 
The  grave  diggers  were  no  doubt  responsible  people,  probably 
in  charge  of  the  whole  cemetery,  and  would  dig  to  rule,  but 

1  Archaeologia,  l,  385. 


TOMB  FURNITURE  169 

the  circumstances  of  the  actual  interment  may  have  been  such 
as  to  explain  an  accidental  error.  There  is  at  any  rate  evidence 
enough  that  the  north  and  south  orientation  was  pagan,  the  east 
and  west  distinctly  though  not  exclusively  Christian,  and 
Mr.  Reginald  Smith  does  well  to  emphasize  the  crucial  case  at 
Garton  Slack  among  the  Wold  cemeteries  of  the  East  Riding 
of  Yorkshire,1  where  there  are  two  parts  to  the  cemetery,  one 
in  which  bodies  were  oriented  north-west  and  south-east  and 
irregularly  disposed  but  with  plenty  of  tomb  furniture,  and 
another  in  which  the  feet  of  the  bodies  are  with  one  exception 
towards  the  east  and  tomb  furniture  is  of  the  most  meagre 
description.  At  Bifrons  there  were  certain  exceptional  graves 
which  ignored  the  lie  of  the  ground  and  were  set  east  and  west. 
With  one  exception  these  were  unfurnished  and  the  case  bears 
out  the  inference  that  can  be  drawn  from  the  Yorkshire  site, 
i.e.,  that  east  and  west  burials  with  little  or  no  tomb  furniture 
are  most  probably  late  and  Christian. 

In  the  matter  of  tomb  furniture  there  rules  the  same 
inconsistency  as  in  orientation,  and  this  is  more  remarkable 
because,  while  the  latter  is  a  mere  matter  of  sentiment,  with 
the  former  were  connected  possibilities  of  a  very  practical 
kind.  If  the  possessions  of  the  dead  were  really  wanted  by 
him  in  his  new  state  of  existence,  or  if  they  were  through 
some  obscure  connection  of  ideas  dangerous  to  his  surviving 
relatives,  the  practice  of  placing  them  in  the  tomb  or  consum- 
ing them  on  the  funeral  pyre  would,  one  might  think,  have 
been  universally  observed,  for  offended  ghosts  are  a  peril,  and 
so  is  a  violated  taboo.  It  is  a  fact  however  that  the  remarks 
of  Canon  Greenwell  about  the  capricious  or  grudging 
observance  of  the  custom  of  thus  furnishing  the  tomb  among 
the  Britons  of  the  Bronze  Age2  would  apply,  though  in  a 
lesser  degree,  to  the  pagan  Teutons.  On  the  whole  abundance 
of  tomb  furniture  has  come  to  light  but  it  is  by  no  means 
evenly    distributed    among    the    interments    examined.      The 

1  Vict.  Hist.,  Yorkshire,  11,  80.  2  British  Barrows,  pp.  57  f.,  287. 


1 7o  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

influence  of  Christianity  in  limiting  and  finally  almost  abolish- 
ing tomb  furniture  must  of  course  be  taken  for  granted,  but 
apart  from  this  the  custom  wanes  or  waxes  in  an  apparently 
capricious  manner.  The  '  Kingston '  brooch  figured  on  the 
Frontispiece,  that  is  perhaps  the  finest  of  all  Germanic  jewels 
in  north-western  Europe,  was  found  in  Kent  on  a  day  in 
1 77 1  on  which  twenty-seven  neighbouring  tumuli  were  also 
opened.  Of  these,  twelve  contained  no  tomb  furniture  at  all, 
and  only  six  furnished  any  article  of  the  least  importance. 
Tombs  destitute  of  all  furniture,  or  containing  only  the  most 
common  of  all  items — a  knife,  occur  in  practically  all  ceme- 
teries and  sometimes  make  up  a  fair  proportion  of  the  total 
number  of  graves.  It  was  reported  at  the  time  of  the  recent 
discovery  of  the  cemetery  at  Alfriston,  Sussex,  that  out  of 
115  graves  more  than  forty  contained  nothing  beside  the 
bones.  It  does  not  always  follow  therefore  that  the  poorly 
equipped  grave  is  a  late  one,  though  at  any  rate  in  our  own 
country  this  may  be  a  general  rule. 

It  has  been  noticed  already  (p.  115  f.)  that  the  custom  of 
burying  these  objects  with  the  dead  lasts  on  into  Christian 
times,  and  in  some  districts  of  England  a  fairly  rich  grave 
may  be  of  Christian  date.  If  the  archaeologists  of  northern 
France  be  right  in  their  chronology  this  was  more  markedly 
the  case  abroad  than  in  this  country.  Messrs.  Eck,1  Pilloy, 
Boulanger,  and  others  ascribe  part  of  the  tomb  furniture  of 
the  cemeteries  they  describe  to  the  Carolingian  epoch,  that  is 
to  the  latter  part  of  VIII.  In  his  Etudes,  Vol.  1,  p.  123  f., 
M.  Pilloy  gives  actual  dates  for  the  three  periods  among  which 
he  apportions  the  tomb  furniture  of  the  cemeteries  of  the 
Aisne.  The  first  period  embraces  V  and  VI,  the  second  VII 
and  VIII,  the  third  part  of  VIII  with  an  extension  into  IX 
and  even  perhaps  into  X.  M.  Boulanger  adopts  the  same 
system  in  his  Mobilier  Funeraire  and  his  book  on  Marchelepot. 

1  e.g.   '  Le   Cimetiere   Franc   de   Lucy-Ribemont/   in    Bulletin   Arch'eo- 
logique,  1893. 


XVI 

facing  p.  171 


SUN  DISC  AND  LATE  TOMB  FURNITURE 


2  is  3  natural  size  ;  3,  about  half-size 
!■>  3>  4>  are  Continental  pieces 


RARITY  OF  LATE  FINDS  171 

M.  Pilloy  compares  buckles  like  that  at  Rouen  shown  PI.  xvi,  3, 
with  the  grotesque  carved  capitals  of  early  Romanesque 
churches.1  A  definite  justification  for  this  late  dating  is 
furnished  by  the  Burgundian  cemetery  of  Bel-Air  near 
Lausanne  in  Switzerland  where  in  one  of  the  later  graves 
M.  Troyon  found  ten  coins  of  Charles  the  Great.2  In  our 
own  country  the  case  is  somewhat  different.  Movable 
objects  of  late  date  make  their  appearance,  though  not  in  any 
abundance,  and  are  often  found  in  tombs,  but  with  the  rarest 
exceptions  these  are  not  graves  in  the  regular  cemeteries  which 
supply  the  tomb  furniture  of  the  pagan  period,  but  isolated 
interments  of  the  Viking  epoch,  such  as  that  discovered  near 
Bedale  in  Yorkshire  in  the  centre  of  the  great  Roman  road  to 
the  north.3  It  is  almost  without  precedent  to  find  objects  in 
the  regular  cemeteries  that  exhibit  any  sign  either  of  the 
Carolingian  renaissance  or  of  the  characteristic  linear  and 
zoomorphic  ornament  of  the  Scandinavian  Viking  age.  The 
object  figured  PI.  ix,  6  (p.  103)  is  one  of  the  ftw  that  might 
fall  under  the  first  category  but  we  have  seen  reason  to  believe 
that  its  date  would  fall  within  VII  (p.  106  f.). 

Almost  unique  again  as  occurring  in  a  cemetery  of  some 
extent,  embracing  200  interments,  and  containing  early  tomb 
furniture,4  is  a  find  in  a  woman's  grave  at  Saffron  Walden, 
Essex,  shown  PI.  xvi,  2.  In  the  midst  of  a  short  string  of 
cornelian,  rock  crystal,  and  other  beads  there  hangs  a  round 
disc  with  a  cruciform  pattern,  above  which  are  two  silver  beads 
one  with  a  pattern  of  spirals  and  the  other  encircled  with  rows 
of  pearls.  On  each  side  of  the  centre  are  two  discs  of  bronze 
enriched  with  ornament  to  which  Anglo-Saxon  tomb  furniture 

1  Etudes,  1,  47. 

2  Description  des  Tombeaux  de  Bel- Air,  Lausanne,  1841,  note  added  in 
1856. 

3  Arch.  Journ,  v.  220  ;  Vict.  Hist.,  Yorks,  11,  97. 

4  Notably  a  fine  collection  of  bronze  bangles  of  a  pronounced  Roman 
type,  found  on  a  different  body  from  that  which  wore  the  necklet  described 
in  the  text,  see  PI.  cix,  3  (p.  457). 


172  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

offers  no  parallel.  It  has  been  described  as  '  foliated,'  but 
there  is  really  no  imitation  of  vegetable  forms.  A  kind  of 
framework  seems  to  be  represented  as  made  with  cords 
knotted,  doubled,  and  perhaps  fastened  in  places  by  pins. 
Round  this  is  then  twisted  a  band  formed  of  three  parallel 
strands,  and  spaces  are  filled  up  with  ornamental  ends  attached 
rather  awkwardly  as  tangents  to  the  loops.  A  close  parallel 
to  this  design  will  be  found  on  two  beautiful  golden  brooches 
in  the  Museum  at  Copenhagen  from  Hornelund  near  Varde 
in  Jutland,  dating  from  the  Viking  period  VIII  to  X.  One 
of  them  is  illustrated  PI.  xvi,  4.  Again,  the  silver  bead  with 
the  spirals  is  closely  paralleled  by  a  hollow  sphere  of  bronze, 
PI.  xvi,  5,  ornamented  in  the  same  fashion  and  used  for  the 
head  of  a  pin,  that  was  found  in  191 2  at  Talnotrie  near 
Newton  Stewart  in  Scotland,  together  with  coins  of  Burghtred 
of  Mercia  that  date  the  find  to  the  middle  of  IX.  The  other 
bead  is  like  some  figured  as  of  VII  or  VIII  in  M.  Boulanger's 
Marchekpot,  pi.  xxiii. 

Hence  there  is  no  doubt  at  all  about  the  late  date  of  the 
Saffron  Walden  pendants,  and  the  point  of  interest  is  that 
finds  of  the  class  are  in  our  regular  Anglo-Saxon  cemeteries 
of  such  exceptional  rarity  that  no  parallel  to  the  case  just 
signalized  is  known.  The  conclusion  indicated  would  be  that 
our  country  cemeteries  went  out  of  use  at  an  earlier  date  than 
those  across  the  Channel,  and  that  the  custom  of  burying  on 
the  old  pagan  sites  was  maintained  among  our  neighbours 
longer  than  among  ourselves.  This  would  to  some  extent 
explain  the  facts  noted  above  (p.  130)  that  in  the  number  of 
interments  our  British  cemeteries  are  so  limited  as  compared 
with  the  foreign  graveyards,  where  additional  accommodation 
has  often  been  secured  by  superinhumation.1  We  may  bring 
this  comparatively  prompt  abandonment  of  the  original  ceme- 
teries in  English  country  districts  into  connection  with  the 

1  At   Bel-Air   near  Lausanne   M.   Troyon   distinguished  three  separate 
'  couches '  or  layers  of  interments. 


DATE  OF  ENGLISH  CEMETERIES  173 

early  establishment  of  the  village  churches.  In  the  first 
volume  of  this  work  an  attempt  was  made  to  exhibit  the  life 
of  the  mediaeval  village  as  centering  in  the  church  and  to 
carry  the  evidence  for  this  position  of  the  church  as  far  back 
into  Saxon  times  as  was  possible.  The  number  of  existing 
Saxon  churches,  and  the  extraordinary  abundance  in  parts  of 
Britain  of  carved  memorial  and  sepulchral  stones  attesting  the 
early  existence  of  such  village  churches,  produce  the  impression 
that  the  church  bulked  pretty  largely  in  the  general  life  of  the 
people  of  Anglo-Saxon  Britain,  and  it  may  very  well  be  that 
the  villagers  were  not  so  much  driven  from  their  original 
cemeteries  by  ecclesiastical  proscriptions  as  attracted  from 
them  to  the  parish  graveyard  because  the  church  around 
which  it  lay  had  grown  to  them  familiar  and  dear.  The 
winning  character  of  the  Celtic  missioners  who  accomplished 
the  conversion  of  the  greater  part  of  England  may  have  had 
something  to  do  with  the  early  popularity  of  the  churches. 
It  would  be  dangerous  to  urge  too  strongly  that  English 
mediaeval  village  life  was  a  pleasanter  thing  on  the  whole  than 
rural  existence  abroad,  but  the  history  and  the  archaeology 
of  the  English  country  church  may  justify  some  suggestion 
of  the  kind,  and  it  is  all  in  favour  of  this  to  find  that, 
as  noted  in  connection  with  cemeteries  in  Kent,  the  people 
of  wealth  and  standing  seem  to  have  lived  on  their  country 
manors  and  were  laid  in  death  in  the  midst  of  their  rustic 
neighbours. 

However  this  may  be,  it  seems  pretty  clear  that  our  ceme- 
teries do  not  as  a  rule  come  down  to  so  late  a  date  as  those  across 
the  Channel,  while  on  the  other  side  they  are  not  so  early  as 
the  German  cemeteries  on  the  Lower  Elbe,  or  as  some  Frankish 
ones  that  belong  to  the  time  prior  to  the  invasion  of  Gaul  in 
force  under  Clovis.  Hence  the  bulk  of  the  objects  contained 
in  Anglo-Saxon  graves  belong  to  VI  and  the  early  part  of  VII. 
A  fair  proportion  may  be  dated  in  the  latter  part  of  V,  the 
tendency    of   the    moment    being    rather    to    exaggerate    the 


174  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

number  of  these,  and  comparatively  few  can  be  assigned  to  a 
later  time  than  about  the  middle  of  VII.  It  would  be  rash  to 
set  any  definite  limit  to  the  use  of  the  pagan  cemeteries,  but 
so  far  as  tomb  furniture  is  concerned  the  evidence  for  it  can 
hardly  be  carried  further  than  VII. 

The  comparatively  early  cessation  among  the  Anglo-Saxons 
of  the  practice  of  furnishing  the  tomb  may  in  some  degree 
account  for  the  fact  that  certain  classes  of  objects,  characteristic 
abroad  of  the  later  Merovingian  period,  make  no  appearance 
in  our  insular  tomb  inventories.  Our  repertory  of  grave 
goods  is  of  course  as  we  have  seen  quite  independent,  but  at 
the  same  time  any  class  of  objects  and  any  technical  process 
largely  represented  across  the  Channel  would  certainly  be 
expected  to  make  at  any  rate  an  appearance  in  Anglo-Saxon 
surroundings.  Now  later  Frankish  and  Burgundian  graves 
both  of  men  and  women  contain,  perhaps  as  their  most 
characteristic  item,  handsome  but  very  ponderous  buckles  of 
iron  with  complementary  parts  to  complete  the  parure.  A 
specimen  from  Fetigny  in  the  Museum  at  Fribourg,  Switzer- 
land, is  shown  PI.  xvn,  i.  The  whole  length  is  15  in.  and 
the  plate  is  3^  in.  wide.  The  wearing  of  such  enormous 
ornaments,  especially  by  women,  is  a  matter  only  to  be 
explained  by  the  constraint  of  fashion,  and  as  fashions  spread 
we  should  expect  the  Saxon  lords  and  ladies  to  have  at  any 
rate  coquetted  with  the  vagary.  They  may  quite  well  have 
done  so,  but  the  evidence  may  not  have  been  preserved  owing 
to  the  disuse  among  them  of  the  practice  of  tomb  furniture. 
Only  one  or  two  large  iron  buckles,  and  these  very  poor 
specimens,  have  come  to  light  in  our  cemeteries,  one  at 
Harnham  Hill,  Wilts,  another  at  Folkestone,  while  a  third, 
the  largest  of  all  but  quite  unadorned,  is  at  Maidstone  and 
measures  6  in.  in  length.     It  is  figured  PI.  lxxiii,  2  (p.  355). 

The  continental  buckles  in  question  are  ornamented  with 
silver  plating  in  different  techniques,  and  when  these  processes 
came  into  vogue  abroad  it  is  almost  inconceivable  that  the 


XVII 


acingp.  175 


CONTINENTAL  OBJECTS  AND  PROCESSES 


1,  about  £  natural  size;   2,  much  enlarged  ;  4,  5,  about  natural  size 
All  but  3  are  Continental 


RARITY  OF  SILVER  PLATING  175 

Anglo-Saxon  craftsman  would  not  try  his  hand  at  them. 
Evidence  that  he  did  so  is  however  almost  non-existent.  The 
Fetigny  buckle  is  plated  with  a  sheet  of  silver  of  appreciable 
thickness  on  which  a  design  has  been  produced  by  punched  or 
incised  lines.  The  fish  and  cross  show  that  the  piece  is 
Christian  and  late.  More  original,  and  specially  characteristic 
of  the  class  of  work  under  review,  is  another  process  in  which 
the  silver  is  laid  on  to  the  iron  in  a  very  thin  sheet,  and  the 
pattern  is  made  by  cutting  it  away  in  parts  so  that  the  metal 
beneath  is  brought  into  view.  PI.  xvu,  2,  illustrates  this  ; 
it  is  an  enlargement  of  a  small  piece  of  this  work  at  Namur. 
Sometimes,  but  much  more  rarely,  the  process  is  one  of  inlay- 
ing, and  sinkings  are  cut  in  the  iron  into  which  the  silver, 
or  silver  alternating  with  brass,  is  hammered,  see  PI.  xvu,  4. 
This  technique  is  Roman,  as  the  inlaid  sword  sheath  at  Mainz 
will  show,  PI.  xvu,  3.  It  is  a  notable  fact  that  no  single 
piece  of  true  silver  inlaid  work  on  iron,  and  no  specimen 
of  the  thin  plating  cut  out  into  patterns,  has  been  identified 
in  Anglo-Saxon  tomb  furniture,  while  examples  in  other 
plating  techniques  are  very  few  indeed.1  One  piece  of  iron 
plated  like  the  Fetigny  buckle  was  found  in  the  King's  Field, 
Faversham,  and  is  now  in  the  British  Museum,  PI.  xvn,  5. 
The  design  on  the  plating  is  embossed  by  the  repousse  process. 
There  are  some  much  corroded  fragments  in  the  same  style  at 
Bifrons  House,  but  otherwise  the  specimen  is  unique  and  may 
very  likely  be  an  importation.  There  should  be  noticed  here 
a  '  unicum '  in  the  shape  of  an  iron  fibula  partly  plated  with 
silver  that  was  probably  found  at  Hoxne,  Suffolk,  and  is  now 
in  the  British  Museum.  It  is  shown  later  on  in  connection 
with  some  other  curious  iron  objects  PI.  ex,  3  (p.  459).  The 
large  size  of  this  piece,  it  was  8  in.  long,  and  its  technique 
bring  it  into  a  certain  connection  with  the  huge  iron  silver- 
plated    buckles    of   the    Franks    and    Burgundians.      If  our 

1  The  Abbe  Cochet,  Tombeau  de  Cbilderic,  p.  271,  notices  the  absence  of 
these  objects  from  Anglo-Saxon  graves. 


176  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

cemeteries  had  continued  for  a  longer  time  in  use  there  might 
have  been  more  of  the  kind  to  show. 

Seeing  that  the  tomb  furniture  of  Anglo-Saxon  cemeteries 
is  the  mai.n  subject  of  this  volume  it  will  be  unnecessary  here 
to  elaborate  any  general  statements  as  to  its  character.  As  is 
natural,  certain  groups  of  objects,  such  as  arms,  are  found  only 
in  the  graves  of  men ;  other  groups,  consisting  partly  in  orna- 
ments such  as  strings  of  variegated  glass  beads  and  partly  in 
feminine  implements,  occur  only  in  women's  graves ;  while 
objects  of  a  third  class,  such  as  the  brooch,  the  buckle,  and  the 
knife,  may  be  found  accompanying  the  bones  of  either  sex 
indifferently.  Many  of  the  objects  of  course  are  of  a  kind  not 
specially  Teutonic,  but  like  the  mounted  wooden  buckets,  the 
bronze  bowls,  the  beads,  the  vessels  of  glass,  are  found  in  Celtic 
or  in  Roman  cemeteries,  though  as  a  rule  in  each  genus  there 
is  a  distinctively  Teutonic  species  so  that  the  products  have 
really  a  Germanic  impress.  Other  classes  of  objects  are  more 
exclusively  Germanic,  in  kind  as  well  as  in  style. 

The  positions  in  relation  to  the  body  in  which  these  various 
objects  are  found  are  of  the  same  importance  as  the  relative 
locations  of  the  bodies  themselves  in  the  cemetery,  and  scien- 
tific explorers  should  be  careful  in  both  cases  to  give  the 
requisite  information.  These  indications  of  position  will  be 
noticed  in  what  follows  in  connection  with  the  separate  items 
of  tomb  furniture  presently  to  be  discussed,  but  it  should  be 
borne  in  mind  that  the  actual  position  in  the  grave  of  an 
object  at  the  moment  of  discovery  is  not  always  a  secure 
indication  of  its  original  place.  Accidental  shiftings  due  to 
various  causes  have  not  seldom  taken  place.  For  example  at 
Barrington,  Cambs,  it  was  reported  that  the  following  objects 
were  found  i  all  together  under  the  head  of  a  skeleton ' : — a 
cruciform  fibula — normally  found  at  the  shoulder  or  on  the 
body,  two  pairs  of  clasps — used  generally  for  wrist  fastenings, 
and  a  necklet  of  beads.1  Here  it  will  be  sufficient  to  illustrate 
1  Cambridge  Antiquarian  Society's  Communications,  x,  437. 


EXTERNAL  MARKS  OF  GRAVES  177 

the  relation  of  tomb  furniture  to  the  skeleton  by  the  photo- 
graphs reproduced  on  PI.  xvin,  of  which  No.  3  shows  a  body 
of  a  female  equipped  with  abundant  belongings  that  was  found 
at  Stapenhill  near  Burton-on-Trent.  Many  of  the  objects  are 
clearly  visible  as  they  occupy  their  original  positions  among 
the  bones  to  which  the  corpse  has  been  reduced.  No.  1  is  the 
reproduction  of  a  drawing  of  a  skeleton  found  at  Shepperton 
in  Middlesex.  The  shield  boss  here  lies  over  the  face,  the 
sword  is  held  in  both  hands  over  the  front  of  the  body  and  the 
spear  lies  by  the  side.  No.  2  has  been  noticed  above  (p.  150). 
With  regard  to  the  condition  of  preservation  of  the  bones  and 
relics  there  are  great  differences  the  reasons  for  which  have 
never  been  made  the  subject  of  scientific  inquiry.  The  skeleton 
often  remains  pretty  well  entire,  but  there  are  cases  in  which 
we  are  told  that  every  trace  of  it  had  disappeared  except  the 
enamel  crowns  of  the  teeth !  In  the  case  of  objects  of  wood 
and  iron  the  state  of  preservation  greatly  varies,  and  there  is  a 
good  deal  of  difference  in  the  condition  of  the  glass.  Bronze 
objects  are  generally  well  preserved  and  silver  fairly  so,  while 
the  golden  ornament  issues  from  the  grave  quite  uninjured  by 
time,  a  testimony  to  the  purity  of  the  metal. 

VII.  The  mark  or  monument,  if  any,  that  indicated  at  the 
time  and  to  posterity  the  place  of  interment. 

In  the  case  of  an  extensive  cemetery  like  that  at  Sarre, 
Kent,  where  some  280  graves  were  found  neatly  cut  and 
regularly  arranged,  or  at  High  Down,  Sussex,  where  the 
graves  were  often  close  together  yet  never  impinged  one  on 
the  other,  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  there  were  no  external 
marks  to  locate  the  several  interments.  The  only  kind  of 
mark  that  has  remained  at  all  in  evidence  on  these  cemeteries 
are  the  tumuli,  and  though  these  seem  to  have  been  common 
in  some  parts  in  XVIII  there  are  not  now  many  original 
Anglo-Saxon  ones  to  be  seen.  Bronze  Age  barrows  that  have 
received  secondary  Anglo-Saxon  interments  are  in  certain 
in  M 


178  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

parts  abundant  enough,  but  the  question  here  is  of  monuments 
specially  raised  to  mark  Teutonic  graves.  It  has  been  noticed 
that,  at  any  rate  on  the  Sussex  Downs,  the  Saxon  tumuli  are 
nearer  to  the  settlements  than  the  Bronze  Age  barrows  and 
are  therefore  more  in  danger  of  disturbance.  Owing  to  the 
operations  of  the  plough  tumuli  tend  to  disappear  wherever 
agricultural  activity  extends,  and  this  cause  accounts  for  the 
levelling  of  many  that  Faussett  and  others  noticed  in  XVIII. 
At  Sleaford,  Lincolnshire,  the  explorer  remarked  'my  impres- 
sion is  that  in  this  part  of  the  ground  there  was  originally  a 
series  of  tumuli  .  .  .  and  that  such  tumuli  have  been  ploughed 
down.'1  Sometimes  a  local  appellation  preserves  the  memory 
of  the  earlier  aspect  of  a  cemetery  of  the  kind.  This  was  the 
case  at  Harnham  Hill  near  Salisbury,  where  the  site  bore  the 
name  of  the  { Low  field'  which  suggested  to  Akerman  the 
previous  existence  of  '  the  hlawes  or  tumuli  which  once  covered 
the  ground'2  but  had  long  been  levelled.  In  Essex  a  field 
near  Kelvedon  south  of  Colchester  in  which  many  interments 
were  discovered  about  1888  bore  no  external  marks  of  their 
presence  but  had  been  known  in  the  middle  of  XVIII  as 
'Barrow  field.'3  J.  Y.  Akerman4  suggested  in  connection 
with  the  cemetery  at  Filkins,  Oxon,  that  where  burials  are 
very  shallow,  in  this  case  only  about  6  in.,  we  may  infer  the 
previous  existence  of  tumuli.  Tumuli  appear  to  have  been 
most  common  in  Kent  especially  in  the  eastern  part  where,  it 
has  been  noticed,  Celtic  tumuli  are  particularly  rare,5  so  that 
the  surviving  mounds  in  that  region  represented  primary 
Jutish  interments  not  secondary  ones  in  earlier  barrows.  One 
of  the  best  still  existing  groups  of  such  tumuli  are  some  on  a 
commanding  site  on  the  edge  of  Breach  Down  about  half  a 
mile  south-east  of  Barham  Station,  Kent.  Their  present 
appearance    is   not   a   little   impressive   and    in    the    drawing, 

1  Archaeologia,  l,  385.  2  ibid.,  xxxv,  259. 

3  Essex  Naturalist,  11,  124. 

4  Archaeologia,  xxxvn,  140.  5  ibid.,  xlv,  53. 


TUMULI 


179 


Fig.  7,  the  artist,  Mr.  Robert  T.  Rose,  has  rendered  justice 
to  it. 

Tumuli  of  this  kind  can  never  be  less  than  about  7  or  8  ft. 
in  diameter  and  it  is  only  in  rare  cases  that  there  is  more  than 
one  grave  under  a  single  mound.  Hence  it  is  obvious  that 
where  graves  are  found  placed  fairly  close  together  tumuli 
cannot  have  been  used  to  mark  them.1  It  is  possible  that  in 
this  case  each  grave  was  surmounted  by  a  small  heap  of  ground 
formed  by  the  earth  excavated    for    the   sepulchre    beneath, 


'  'ft  Ufa 


Fig.  7. — Anglo-Saxon  Tumuli  on  Breach  Down,  Kent. 

exactly  after  the  pattern  of  the  grave  mounds  of  our  modern 
churchyards.  That  small  barrows  of  this  modern  kind  were 
in  use  in  the  earliest  Christian  cemeteries  can  be  inferred  from 
the  mention  in  VIII  of  burials  under  the  floors  of  churches 
that  by  reason  of  the  *  tumuli '  made  the  surface  too  uneven 
to  walk  over.2  These  must  of  course  have  been  small  hum- 
mocks not  tumuli  in  the  larger  sense,  and  the  fashion  of  them 
was  most  likely  taken  over  from  the  earlier  heathen  ceme- 
teries. Such  little  mounds  would  disappear  in  the  course  of 
centuries  wherever  the  site  of  a  cemetery  had  been  cultivated, 

1  This  was  noticed  at  Barrington,  Cambs,  Coll.  dnt.,  vi,  162. 

2  Wilkins,  Concilia,  1,  270. 


180  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

though  they  might  be  expected  to  remain  on  the  open  downs. 
This  was  the  case  at  Marston  St.  Lawrence,  Northants,  where 
in  his  first  report1  Sir  Henry  Dryden  writes  of  the  bodies  as 
'  placed  in  graves  under  small  hillocks,  as  ours  are  now,'  and 
at  Farthingdown  near  Coulsdon  in  Surrey,  where  Anglo-Saxon 
graves  were  marked  by  '  slight  hillocks  seldom  rising  two  feet 
from  the  ground  and  resembling  those  to  be  seen  in  village 
churchyards.'2  On  the  whole,  if  the  arrangement  of  the 
graves  in  Anglo-Saxon  cemeteries  seem  to  make  the  hypo- 
thesis of  some  external  mark  a  necessary  one,  the  churchyard 
mound  appears  the  most  simple  and  hence  the  most  likely 
device  for  the  end  in  view,  though  it  must  still  be  surprising 
that  on  an  apparently  untouched  surface  like  that  of  the  ceme- 
tery at  High  Down,  or  again  on  the  down  above  Folkestone, 
no  sign  of  such  an  arrangement  should  now  be  visible. 

The  hypothesis  that  there  was  some  memorial  placed  over 
each  grave  in  a  perishable  material  such  as  wood  is  a  plausible 
one.  In  the  Museum  at  York  there  are  sundry  coffins  hewn 
out  of  solid  tree  trunks  some  of  which  at  any  rate  are  supposed 
to  be  of  Anglian  origin  and  date,  though  the  period  to  which 
they  should  be  ascribed  is  doubtful.  In  the  one  of  which  the 
head  end  is  shown  PI.  xix,  i,  were  found  the  bones  of  a  woman 
accompanied  by  some  beads  that  have  unfortunately  not  been 
preserved.  There  were  also  in  the  coffins  fragments  of  hazel 
rods,  some  portions  of  which  are  seen  at  the  foot  of  the  post 
in  the  photograph.  This  post  is  2  ft.  8  in.  high  and  9  in. 
square  at  the  base  and  is  placed  in  the  Museum  in  the  position 
it  occupied  at  the  head  of  the  coffin,  as  if  to  serve  as  a  mark 
or  memorial.  In  the  dearth  of  such  memorials  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  cemeteries  it  is  an  exhibit  of  importance. 

There  is  a  difference  here  between  England  and  the 
Continent  that  is  of  some  significance.  Lindenschmit  in  his 
Handbuch  figures  a  number  of  tombstones  in  the  Rhineland 
with  German  names   upon  them  apparently  of  Merovingian 

1  Arcbaeologia,  xlviii,  327.         2  Surrey  Archaeological  Collections,  vi,  108. 


XIX 

facing  p.  181 


WOODEN  COFFIN  AND  HEADPOST,  AND  TOMBSTONE 


INSCRIBED  TOMBSTONES  181 

date,  that  bear  Christian  symbols  but  were  found  marking 
graves  supplied  in  pagan  fashion  with  tomb  furniture.  The 
inscriptions  on  these  are  in  Latin.  Many  of  these  Rhineland 
cemeteries  are  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Worms,  where  the 
continuity  of  Latin  and  Teutonic  civilization  is  evidenced  by 
the  free  use  on  the  part  of  the  conquerors  of  the  older  Roman 
graveyards.  In  England  early  inscribed  Germanic  tombstones 
do  occur,  as  at  Hartlepool  and  Monkwearmouth,  but  they  are 
in  monastic  cemeteries  not  in  those  of  Roman  or  of  pagan 
origin  and  associations.  In  general  the  use  of  the  Latin 
language  in  Anglo-Saxon  England  is  due  to  the  direct  agency 
of  the  Church,  whereas  in  the  Rhineland  and  Gaul  Latin  is 
more  freely  used  in  secular  connections  and  must  have  been 
more  commonly  understood.  In  connection  with  the  early 
Anglo-Saxon  coins  attention  has  been  called  to  the  fact  that 
while  the  art  upon  them  is  fresher  and  more  full  of  life  than 
on  contemporary  Gallic  pieces,  yet  the  Latin  of  the  inscriptions 
is  far  more  correct  abroad  than  on  this  side  of  the  Channel. 
The  Latin  inscription  on  the  famous  Alamannic  inlaid  brooch 
from  Wittislingen  will  be  noticed  later  on  (p.  542)  as  some- 
thing to  which  this  country  offers  no  parallel.  It  goes  with 
this  to  find  that  what  appear  to  be  the  only  specimens  of  stone 
monuments  connected  with  Anglo-Saxon  graves  of  a  non- 
ecclesiastical  kind  bear  inscriptions  in  runic  characters.  The 
subject  of  Anglo-Saxon  runes  connects  itself  chiefly  with  the 
inscribed  stones  of  Christian  origin,  such  as  the  Bewcastle 
Cross,  which  are  reserved  for  subsequent  treatment,  and  the 
runic  inscriptions  on  the  gravestones  in  question  need  not 
here  be  discussed. 

The  stones  in  question  are  two  in  number  ;  they  were 
found  near  Sandwich  and  are  now  in  the  Museum  at  Canter- 
bury. Their  dimensions  are  in  the  one  case  about  17  in.  by 
5  in.  by  5  in.,  in  the  other  16  in.  in  height  by  6  in.  square 
above  and  4  in.  square  below,  and  while  on  the  first  the  char- 
acters are  too  worn  to  be  legible,  on  the  second  or  smaller  one 


l82 


THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 


has  been  read  the  single  word  RiEHiEBUL.  They  appear  to 
have  been  set  up,  perhaps  as  headstones,  and  certainly  to  mark 
the  site  of  interments,  and  the  fact  that  they  are  practically 
unique  is  one  that  must  be  signalized.  PI.  xix,  2  shows  the 
smaller  stone.  The  characters  run  from  the  top  of  the  stone 
downwards  and  some  of  them  are  to  be  made  out  in  the  illus- 
tration, but  even  on  the  stone  they  are  very  faint.  Stephens' 
reading,  very  kindly  verified  and  where  necessary  corrected 
from  the  original  by  Mr.  Henry  Meade  of  the  Beaney 
Institute  and  Museum,  Canterbury,  is  given  in  Fig.  8.  The 
only  character  of  importance  chronologically  is  the  H  (N). 
This    has   only   a   single  cross-stroke,  whereas    all    the   early 


K 

Fig.  8. — Runic  Tombstone  from  Sandwich. 


datable  Anglo-Frisian  inscriptions  in  which  the  character 
occurs  give  it  two  parallel  cross-strokes,  as  Fig.  8,  a.  On  the 
other  hand  the  single  cross-stroke  is  normal  in  Scandinavia, 
and  this  would  favour  a  Viking  origin  for  the  stones.  They 
cannot  at  any  rate  be  safely  employed  as  evidence  for  the 
use  of  tombstones  in  the  cemeteries  in  the  earlier  period. 
In  the  later  Scandinavian  runes  the  second  and  fourth  characters 
would  be  *C  not  iJE.y  Whereas  wooden  headposts  may  all 
have  perished  by  decay  this  cannot  apply  to  the  case  of  stone 
ones,  and  the  fact  that  these  have  not  survived  is  conclusive 
evidence  that  their  use  can  only  have  been  very  occasional. 
How  the  Anglo-Saxon  graves  were  marked  or  distinguished  is 
still  an  unsolved  problem. 


ABNORMAL  APPEARANCES  183 

VIII.  Indications  in  the  cemeteries  of  social  customs,  and 
of  racial  or  other  distinctions  among  the  persons  therein 
interred. 

In  the  case  of  most  of  the  cemeteries  some  one  or  one  or  two 
of  the  graves  has  been  signalled  out  from  the  rest  by  some 
rare  or  puzzling  appearance  that  at  once  invites  inquiry.  We 
have  seen  that  as  a  rule,  tomb  furniture  apart,  the  funeral 
arrangements  of  the  pagan  Saxons  were  singularly  like  our 
own,  but  every  now  and  then  something  comes  to  light  which 
suggests  practices  of  a  quite  abnormal  kind.  Some  have  even 
discerned  traces  of  the  immolation  of  captives,  retainers,  or 
relatives,  or  the  self-devotion  to  death  of  a  survivor  intimately 
associated  with  the  deceased,  in  phenomena  which  the  spade 
of  the  explorer  has  revealed.  For  example  in  one  grave 
opened  at  Mitcham,  Surrey,  there  was  found  the  body  of  '  a 
small  woman  who  had  been  carelessly  thrown  in  on  her  face 
between  two  warriors,'  *  giving  rise  to  the  suggestion  of 
human  sacrifice  or  '  suttee.'  What  does  it  imply  when  we 
find,  as  at  White  Horse  Hill,  Berks,  decapitated  skeletons 
with  the  skulls  placed  between  the  thigh  bones,  or,  as  at 
Mitcham,  the  complete  skeleton  of  a  warrior  with  another 
skull  between  his  hands  or  beside  his  feet  ? 

To  inquirers  of  an  anthropological  turn  of  mind  it  would 
be  an  interesting  task  to  follow  out  the  suggestions  offered  by 
these  abnormal  appearances,  but  the  very  fact  that  they  are 
exceptional  puts  them  out  of  the  range  of  the  present  treat- 
ment, and  in  order  to  keep  this  book  within  reasonable  limits 
of  size  no  exploration  of  these  bypaths  can  be  indulged  in. 
The  normal  phenomena  of  the  cemeteries  however  enable  us 
to  draw  inferences  of  a  general  kind  which  possess  racial  and 
social  significance,  and  to  these  some  attention  must  be  paid. 

1.  The  evidence  of  the  cemeteries  seems  to  show  an 
essential  unity  of  race  among  the  denizens  of  them  in  all  the 
Teutonized  regions  of  the  land,  though  this  need  not  preclude 

1  Arcbaeologia,  lx,  58. 


184  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

such  tribal  distinctions  as  history  would  suggest  among  Jutes, 
Saxons,  and  Angles,  nor  differences  among  smaller  bodies, 
septs,  clans,  or  whatever  we  choose  to  call  them,  which  may- 
have  survived  within  the  larger  aggregates. 

2.  The  communities  using  the  several  cemeteries  were  on 
the  whole  socially  homogeneous  though  varieties  in  wealth 
and  station  may  be  inferred  from  a  comparative  study  of  tomb 
furniture. 

3.  Family  and  personal  relations  of  a  somewhat  close  kind 
can  occasionally  be  inferred  from  appearances  in  the  graves. 

1 .  Under  this  heading  we  have  to  inquire  (a)  whether  the 
racial  distinction  of  Teuton  and  Celt  is  to  be  observed  in  the 
cemeteries,  and  (b)  what  differences,  if  any,  in  funeral  customs  or 
bodily  characteristics  appear  to  separate  Jute,  Saxon,  and  Angle. 

(a)  There  is  an  almost  unbroken  consensus  of  opinion  among 
explorers  of  these  cemeteries,  and  experts  who  have  reported 
on  the  outcome  of  them,  that  the  skeletons  found  are  of  the 
Teutonic  race  and  that  this  applies  to  male  and  female  alike. 
At  the  same  time  suggestions  have  been  made  that  traces  of  the 
older  British  population  are  to  be  looked  for,  especially  among 
the  skeletons  of  females,  the  inference  being  that  the  Teutonic 
warriors  took  to  themselves  wives  from  the  older  inhabitants  of 
the  land.  In  connection  with  one  of  the  most  recent  explora- 
tions of  a  cemetery,  that  at  East  Shefford,  Berks,  it  was  urged 
that  there  was  cranial  evidence  that  the  older  females  were  for 
the  most  part  at  any  rate  of  British  race.  This  meant  re- 
opening a  question  that  anthropologists  considered  practically 
settled  in  favour  of  community  of  race  between  the  sexes.  In 
connection  with  another  of  the  more  recent  discoveries,  that  of 
the  cemetery  on  Dover  Hill  above  Folkestone,  Kent,  Professor 
F.  G.  Parsons  reported  in  1 9 1 1  1  that  '  the  female  skulls  and 
bones  showed  no  points  of  difference  from  those  of  the  males 
except  in  the  normal  sexual  signs,'  and  this  agrees  with  the 
tenor  of  most  previous  reports  of  the  kind  by  craniologists. 
1   Journal  of  Royal  Anthropological  Institute,  xli,  128. 


ANGLO-SAXON  SKULLS 


CRANIOLOGICAL  EVIDENCE  185 

Writing  in  the  Wilts  Magazine  about  1890  General  Pitt 
Rivers  drew  a  comparison  from  the  anthropometric  point  of 
view  among  three  classes  of  skeletons  found  in  prehistoric 
tombs  in  England.  The  biggest  and  strongest  men  were 
those  of  the  Early  Bronze  Age,  the  smallest  and  most  delicate 
belonged  to  our  Early  Iron  Age  and  the  Romano-British 
period,  while  the  Anglo-Saxon  skeletons  male  and  female  came 
in  between,  and  were  notably  those  of  larger  people  than  the 
Romano-Britons.  Craniologically  the  Anglo-Saxons  are  dolicho- 
cephalic, that  is  their  skulls  are  long  from  front  to  back  in 
proportion  to  their  width — '  long  and  fairly  high  but  distinctly 
deficient  in  width  '  Professor  Parsons  describes  them1 — whereas 
the  Celts  were  round-headed  or  brachycephalic,  with  a  width 
of  head  from  side  to  side  more  nearly  approaching  its  length. 
The  dolichocephalic  character  of  Anglo-Saxon  skulls  generally 
has  been  almost  universally  recognized  though  some  female 
skulls  from  East  Shefford  have  been  claimed  as  approaching 
the  Celtic  form.  The  present  writer  lacks  the  scientific  know- 
ledge without  which  these  anthropometrical  questions  cannot 
be  usefully  discussed,  and  it  must  suffice  here  to  note  that  the 
possibility  of  British  female  skeletons  being  associated  with 
those  of  Anglo-Saxon  males  has  recently  been  at  any  rate 
adduced. 

The  evidence  other  than  craniological  bearing  on  this 
question  of  a  possible  mixture  of  races  in  the  early  Teutonic 
settlements  has  been  already  referred  to  in  the  Introductory 
Chapter  (p.  50  f.)  and  the  net  result  so  far  as  our  present  know- 
ledge extends  is  that  the  distinction  between  Celt  and  Saxon 
has  left  no  appreciable  mark  in  the  cemeteries. 

The  other  question  (b)  is  whether  the  population  of  the 
cemeteries,  exhibiting  everywhere  a  distinct  Germanic  character, 
shows  at  the  same  time  local  differences  that  may  distinguish 
the  three  main  groups  of  the  invaders,  and  within  these  groups 
may  indicate  smaller  aggregates  of  a  tribal  or  gentile  order. 

1  ibid.,  p.  1 10. 


186  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

Such  expressions  as  'an  Anglian  skull,'  'the  Jutish  type' 
are  sufficiently  familiar,  and  when  used  by  acknowledged 
authorities  on  craniology  they  are  not  to  be  neglected,  but 
they  are  at  best  obiter  dicta,  and  a  much  more  serious  and 
systematic  study  is  required  before  we  can  be  satisfied  that 
there  were  specific  differences  in  bony  structure  among  Saxons, 
Jutes,  and  Angles.  This  part  of  the  subject  may  at  any  rate 
be  left  in  the  meantime  with  the  words  recently  penned  by 
Dr.  W.  L.  H.  Duckworth,1  '  it  is  very  desirable  that  an  ex- 
tensive investigation  should  be  made  of  the  skulls  from  all 
the  Saxon  cemeteries  of  which  descriptions  exist.'  On  PI.  xx 
there  are  reproduced  one  or  two  skulls  as  specimens  of  the 
material  available  for  study.  They  are  mostly  from  photographs 
which  the  authorities  of  the  Cambridge  Anatomical  Museum 
kindly  allowed  the  writer  to  take.  No.  I  is  an  Anglian  skull 
from  Londesborough  in  the  East  Riding  of  Yorkshire  in  the 
York  Museum.  No.  2,  at  Cambridge,  is  from  Hauxton, 
Cambs.  No.  3  is  in  the  Art  Museum  at  Rugby  and  was 
found  at  Street  Ash  ton,  near  the  Fosse  Way,  Warwickshire, 
with  the  open-socketed  spear  head  figured  beside  it  which 
shows  it  to  be  Anglo-Saxon.  No.  4  is  a  West  Saxon  skull 
from  Harnham  Hill,  Wilts,  and  No.  5  a  Jutish  skull,  minus 
the  lower  jaw,  from  Ozengell  cemetery,  Thanet,  Kent. 

Differences  of  the  kind  suggested  may  be  discerned  in 
funeral  customs  and  in  the  character  of  tomb  furniture  as  well 
as  in  the  physical  peculiarities  of  skeletons.  There  are  obvious 
differences  between  cemetery  and  cemetery  in  the  manner  of 
treating  the  body  and  arranging  the  grave  but  there  seems  no 
evidence  that  these  differences  are  really  racial  ones.  The 
most  striking  of  these  differences  is  that  between  cremation 
and  inhumation,  but  it  is  the  view  taken  in  this  book  and 
developed  later  on  (Ch.  x)  that  this  difference  depends  on 
time  and  locality  rather  than  race.  Then  there  is  the  common 
use  made  of  coffins  in  Kentish  interments  while  coffins  else- 
1  Cambridge  Antiquarian  Society's  Communications,  vol.  xvi,  191 2,  p.  128. 


CONTRASTS  AMONG  CEMETERIES  187 

where  are  rare,  and  there  is  the  difference  between  the  custom 
of  laying  the  body  flat  on  the  surface  of  the  subsoil  or  the 
stratum  below  the  alluvial  deposit,  or  excavating  in  this  a 
distinct  grave. 

It  is  clear  that  differences  of  this  kind  are  not  sufficiently 
far-reaching  or  consistent  to  serve  as  indications  of  race,  but 
on  the  other  hand  they  are  often  sufficiently  marked  to  dis- 
tinguish smaller  social  aggregates.  Let  us  take  for  example 
the  cemetery  at  Sleaford  in  Lincolnshire,  where  we  find  in 
general  use  the  custom  of  burial  in  a  crouching  position  which 
elsewhere  is  only  sporadic.  Does  not  this  seem  to  indicate  the 
existence  of  a  community  with  its  own  customs  and  traditions 
differing  from  other  Anglo-Saxon  communities,  just  as  one 
Roman  gens  differed  in  its  sacra  gentilicia  from  another  ?  In 
the  neighbouring  cemeteries,  about  8  miles  apart,  of  Linton 
Heath  and  Little  Wilbraham,  Cambs,  where  the  tomb  furni- 
ture is  of  just  the  same  kind  and  the  only  difference  seems  to 
be  that  the  first  named  is  rather  the  earlier,  there  was  in  the 
first  case  no  sign  of  cremation  and  in  the  second  abundant 
cremation.  Why  this  contrast?  Many  cemeteries  in  East 
Anglia  and  the  northern  Midlands  present  evidence  of  the  co- 
existence, certainly  in  place  and  in  all  probability  also  in  time, 
of  the  rites  of  cremation  and  inhumation.  Did  the  people 
who  practised  the  latter  form  a  social  aggregate  differing  from 
those  who  held  to  the  earlier  tradition,  or  was  the  change 
merely  due  to  an  influence  that  was  affecting  the  whole  com- 
munity but  which  happened  to  become  effective  in  some 
families  or  groups  earlier  than  in  others  ?  It  must  be  confessed 
that  about  these  assumed  smaller  aggregates  within  the  larger 
political  divisions  we  know  practically  nothing,  and  even  their 
existence  is  problematical.  In  the  older  days  of  Kemble  and 
Isaac  Taylor  place-names  ending  in  or  containing  the  syllable 
•  ing '  were  held  to  indicate  the  existence  at  each  township  of 
a  community  united  by  ties  of  relationship,  that  might  be 
credited   with   different   beliefs    and    customs   from    those   of 


188  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

neighbouring  communities,  but  the  '  ing '  theory  in  its  earlier 
form  is  now  quite  given  up,  see  Vol.  i,  p.  68  f.  In  our 
present  state  of  knowledge,  if  it  were  not  for  these  exceptional 
appearances  in  some  of  the  graveyards  we  should  certainly  take 
for  granted  the  homogeneity  of  the  population  over  tolerably 
wide  areas,  and  should  expect  one  South  Saxon  or  Kentish 
village  to  be  very  like  another.  It  is  doubtful  whether  these 
archaeological  discrepancies,  interesting  as  they  are,  are  marked 
enough  or  well  enough  understood  to  shake  us  out  of  our 
present  prepossessions. 

When  we  deal  with  the  single  cemeteries  each  for  itself 
this  impression  of  homogeneity  is  confirmed.  Save  in  the  one 
matter  of  cremation  and  inhumation,  which  as  we  have  just 
seen  may  not  really  involve  any  marked  social  differences,  this 
homogeneity  is  almost  absolute,  and  nowhere  has  the  levelling 
power  of  death  made  itself  more  apparent  than  in  the  Teutonic 
graveyard  of  pagan  times.  There  are  of  course  marked  con- 
trasts between  the  richly  equipped  graves  and  those  almost  or 
entirely  bare  of  furniture,  and  these  may  be  an  index  to  com- 
parative wealth  or  social  station,  but  it  has  been  expressly 
noticed  by  explorers  that  in  the  latter  cases  the  graves  have 
been  prepared  and  the  bodies  have  been  laid  in  them  with  the 
same  care  that  has  been  shown  in  the  most  sumptuously 
supplied  interment.  No  special  part  of  the  cemetery  seems  to 
have  been  regarded  as  an  aristocratic  preserve,  and,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Kingston  cemetery  already  referred  to  (p.  170), 
rich  and  poor  seem  to  have  slept  their  long  sleep  side  by  side. 
In  the  case  of  some  foreign  cemeteries,  such  as  that  of  Reichen- 
hall  in  Bavaria,  an  endeavour  has  been  made  to  identify  groups 
of  graves  as  belonging  to  sections  of  the  community  connected 
by  ties  of  relationship.  It  has  been  already  noticed  that  the 
weak  point  of  cemetery  exploration  in  this  country  has  been 
the  neglect  of  a  survey  of  the  graves  as  a  whole  in  their  dis- 
tribution and  local  arrangements  so  that  there  are  no  recorded 
observations  bearing  on  this  question.     Family  burials  however 


ASSOCIATED  BURIALS  189 

to  all  appearance  occur,  and  they  are  among  those  interments, 
represented  in  every  larger  cemetery,  where  more  than  one 
body  has  been  laid  in  a  single  tomb.  Such  burials  are  not 
always  family  ones,  and  in  many,  perhaps  in  the  majority  of 
instances,  the  bodies  are  disposed  in  a  rather  careless  fashion  as 
if  the  desire  only  was  to  get  rid  of  them  somehow.  Explorers 
have  noticed  that  in  the  case  of  these  plural  burials  tomb 
furniture  is  for  the  most  part  wanting.  On  the  other  hand 
there  are  instances  in  which  the  plural  interment  was  both 
careful  and  richly  supplied,  and  there  are  appearances  about 
some  of  these  which  set  the  imagination  at  work.  Of  two 
warriors  found  in  a  single  grave  at  Long  VVittenham,  Berks, 
one  had  his  left  arm  within  the  right  arm  of  the  other, 
suggesting  to  the  explorer,  J.  Y.  Akerman,  the  relation  of 
father  and  son.1  Two  warriors  of  advanced  age  at  Sarre,  Kent, 
were  found  buried  together,  and  the  abundance  of  the  tomb 
furniture  seemed  to  show  that  a  sort  of  heroic  honour  had  been 
done  to  the  deceased  who  may  have  battled  side  by  side  and  in 
their  deaths  were  not  divided.  The  plural  burial  at  Stowting, 
Kent,  already  referred  to  (pp.  158, 167)  was  a  most  striking  one. 

It  occurs  not  infrequently  in  the  accounts  of  cemeteries 
that  the  bodies  of  children  appear  to  have  been  disposed  of  in 
an  exceptional  manner,  and  one  that  is  more  archaic  than  the 
prevailing  fashion  of  the  particular  burying  ground.  General 
Pitt  Rivers  noticed  that  at  Winklebury  Hill,  Wilts,  while 
twenty-six  skeletons  had  their  feet  to  the  east  two  had  theirs  to 
the  west  and  these  were  both  children,  '  which,'  he  says,  '  seems 
perhaps  to  mark  a  distinction  in  the  mode  of  burial  for  young 
people.'2  At  Filkins,  Oxon,  and  Long  Wittenham,  Berks, 
children  had  their  feet  to  the  north  while  the  other  bodies  had 
theirs  to  the  east.  At  Fairford,  Gloucestershire,  and  Hassocks, 
Sussex,  exceptional  cases  of  cremation  were  those  of  children. 
Whether  these  little  ones  were  regarded  by  semi-Christianized 
parents  as  *  unregenerate '  may  be  left  uncertain. 

1  Archaeologia,  xxxix,  141.  2  Excavations  in  Cranborne  Chase,  11,  259. 


190  THE  ANGLO-SAXON  CEMETERY 

When  two  bodies  in  a  plural  interment  are  of  opposite 
sexes,  and  especially  when  that  of  a  child  accompanies  them,  a 
family  relationship  is  suggested,  though  to  the  critical  mind 
the  question  will  present  itself  how  it  came  about  that  the 
two  or  the  three  deaths  were  to  all  appearance  simultaneous. 
The  appearance  of  the  male  and  the  female  skeletons  together 
suggesting  a  tender  association  cannot  fail  to  remind  us  of  an 
incident  referred  to  in  a  previous  volume  of  this  work,Vol.  i,  1 1 5, 
when  St.  Boniface  expressed  the  wish  that  his  bones  might  be 
laid  in  the  same  grave  with  those  of  his  beloved  kinswoman 
and  fellow-worker,  the  saintly  Saxon  lady  Lioba.  This  idea 
of  the  joining  of  bones  in  death  has  about  it  more  than  a 
touch  of  northern  romance,  and  a  thousand  years  "after  the 
day  of  Boniface  the  poignant  utterance  of  this  same  desire  is 
the  climax  of  the  tragedy  of  '  Wuthering  Heights.' 

Here  are  some  reflections  which  offered  themselves  to  the 
antiquary  Charles  Roach  Smith  on  the  opening  of  a  grave  at 
Ozengell  in  the  Isle  of  Thanet,  Kent.  '  In  another  grave,  of 
unusual  width,  were  three  skeletons  ;  two  were  of  adults,  a 
male  and  a  female,  the  third  a  child.  The  former  lay  close 
together  ;  their  faces  had  been  inclined  towards  each  other  ; 
and  time,  which  in  other  instances  had  almost  consumed  the 
last  vestiges  of  the  human  fabric,  had  dealt  more  leniently 
with  the  inmates  of  this  family  tomb,  and  had  brought  the 
skulls  of  husband  and  wife  (for  such  we  may  consider  their 
relationship  to  have  been)  into  close  contact,  face  to  face, 
separated  only  by  the  spear  head  of  the  man.  Beads  of  amber 
surrounded  the  necks  of  the  female  and  child,  and  the  dress 
of  the  former  appeared  to  have  been  fastened  in  front  by  a 
long  metal  pin.  By  the  side  of  the  skeleton  of  the  child  was 
also  a  small  knife.'  Two  adults  and  a  child  were  found  to- 
gether in  a  single  grave  at  the  recent  opening  of  a  Jutish 
burying  place  at  Broadstairs  in  Kent,  and  many  similar 
instances  might  be  quoted.1  There  are  not  a  few  cases  where 
1  A  case  at  Chessell  Down,  Isle  of  Wight,  was  noticed  (p.  747). 


THE  FUNERAL  FEAST  191 

an  infant  seems  to  have  been  buried  with  its  mother.  This 
was  the  case  for  example  in  grave  205  at  Kingston,  Kent, 
which  produced  the  famous  Kingston  brooch  represented  on 
the  Frontispiece  to  this  volume.  The  tomb  measured  10  ft. 
by  8  ft.  and  was  6  ft.  deep. 

The  funeral  feast  is  a  social  custom  attested  by  numerous 
discoveries  in  cemeteries  in  all  parts  of  Teutonized  England. 
The  bones  of  animals  commonly  utilized  for  food  frequently 
occur  and  are  sometimes  found  heaped  together  in  those  pits 
and  ditches  already  referred  to  (p.  136)  as  somewhat  enigma- 
tical features  in  the  cemeteries.  Collections  of  these  bones  may 
be  seen  in  the  Museum  of  the  Burton-on-Trent  Archaeological 
Society,  in  the  Reading  Museum,  and  elsewhere.  The  sacri- 
ficial feasts  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  with  which  such  funeral  feasts 
would  have  much  in  common  are  referred  to  in  a  well-known 
passage  of  Bede's  Ecclesiastical  History,1  and  also  in  the 
writings  of  St.  Boniface.  In  his  sixth  discourse  the  latter  says 
'  omnia  autem  sacrificia  et  auguria  paganorum  sacrilegia  sunt, 
quemadmodum  sunt  sacrificia  mortuorum  super  defuncta 
corpora,  vel  super  sepulchra  illorum,'  and  a  letter  from  Pope 
Zacharias  quotes  him  as  saying  '  tauros  et  hircos  diis  paganorum 
immolabant,  manducantes  sacrificia  mortuorum.'2 

1  1,  3°- 

2  Migne,  Patrolog.  Curs.  Compl.  Ser.  Lat.,  lxxxix,  pp.  855,  944. 


CHAPTER  IV 

TOMB  FURNITURE  :  (I)  ARMS 

The  reader  who  has  access  to  the  Associated  Societies'  Reports 
would  do  well  to  peruse  the  account  given  of  the  exploration 
in  1863  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  cemetery  at  Kempston  on  the 
Ouse  a  mile  or  two  above  Bedford.1  The  Rev.  S.  Edward 
Fitch,  M.D.,  describes  how  in  the  spring  of  that  year  workers 
in  the  Kempston  gravel  pit  laid  bare,  only  two  feet  below 
the  surface  and  resting  on  the  upper  stratum  of  gravel,  a 
human  skeleton,  and  how  from  that  time  through  the  summer 
he  superintended  the  opening  of  grave  after  grave  wherein  the 
bodies  of  Anglo-Saxons,  or  the  burnt  bones  of  these,  had  been 
laid  to  rest  with  their  funeral  furniture  about  them.  It  is  a 
model  report,  because  the  writer,  observing  and  recording  in 
a  scientific  spirit,  was  not  so  severely  archaeological  as  to 
repress  those  reflections  which  occurred  to  him  as  a  man  of 
thought  and  feeling  when  in  contact  with  these  buried  relics 
of  the  first  Teutonic  inhabitants  of  the  place. 

This  Kempston  Report  will  accordingly  assist  the  reader 
to  form  an  idea  of  the  impression  produced  on  those  to  whom 
for  the  first  time  the  earth  of  their  own  fields  has  revealed 
these  long-kept  secrets  of  the  oldest  local  history.  The 
interest  here  is  of  a  human  and  historical  kind.  We  will  now 
go  on  to  interrogate  the  cemeteries  with  a  purpose  more  dis- 
tinctly antiquarian.  One  cemetery  may  be  selected  as  typical. 
The  one  chosen  is  that  of  Bifrons  near  Canterbury,  specially 
remarkable  for  the  number  of  different  types  of  fibulae  found 

1  Associated  Societies''  Reports,  1864,  p.  269  f. 

192 


BIFRONS  CEMETERY  193 

in  it  as  well  as  for  the  variety  of  its  yieldings  as  a  whole.  It 
is  one  of  a  class  of  cemeteries  well  represented  in  that  region, 
and  lies  on  a  slope  above  a  Kentish  stream,  in  absolutely  rural 
surroundings  where  gentle  and  simple  seem  to  have  lived 
together  generation  after  generation  in  those  pleasant  relations 
which  we  are  fond  of  regarding  as  characteristically  English. 
Necessary  details  about  the  site  will  be  given  in  the  following 
Volume,  and  notes  on  the  orientation  of  the  graves  and  on 
the  evidence  for  the  use  of  coffins  in  the  burials  have  been 
brought  before  the  reader  (pp.  168,  150),  so  that  we  proceed 
at  once  to  the  inventory,  taking  as  explained  above  first  the 
arms  of  the  warrior  ;  next  the  ornaments  which  are  mostly 
though  of  course  not  exclusively  feminine ;  then  the  miscel- 
laneous finds  ;  and  lastly  the  vessels.  It  will  be  understood 
that  the  objects  actually  found  at  Bifrons  are  not  only 
described  in  themselves  but  in  most  cases  made  the  starting 
point  of  a  more  extended  survey,  embracing  other  specimens 
of  the  same  class  not  represented  in  this  particular  locality,  so 
that  by  following  this  system  something  like  a  complete 
inventory  of  the  impedimenta  of  Anglo-Saxon  life  will  it  is 
hoped  be  secured.  In  the  matter  of  arms  for  example  Bifrons 
is  not  particularly  rich,  and  these  will  be  largely  illustrated 
from  other  sources.  On  this  one  site  however  there  were 
found  six  or  seven  swords,  fourteen  shield  bosses,  and  forty- 
six  spear  heads,  together  with  one  or  two  abnormal  pieces. 


THE  COAT  OF  MAIL  AND  THE  HELMET 

No  Anglo-Saxon  warrior  has  yet  been  found  equipped 
with  so  complete  a  panoply  as  that  of  the  Alamannic  champion 
whose  grave  was  disinterred  at  Gammertingen  in  southern 
Germany  on  December  15,  1902,1  nor  so  rich  a  one  as  was 
found  in   1886  at  Vermand  in  northern  France  in  the  grave 

1  Grobbels,  Der  Reibengraberfund  von  Gammertingen,  Miinchen,  1905. 
Ill  N 


194  THE  COAT  OF  MAIL 

of  a  Germanic  chieftain  in  the  service  of  Rome.1  The  former 
possessed  a  shirt  of  mail  and  a  noble  helmet  as  well  as  the 
almost  universal  shield,  and  for  weapons  of  offence  a  broad- 
sword, a  cutlass,  a  battleaxe,  a  spear,  and  a  quiver  full  of 
arrows.  The  weapons  of  the  latter,  so  far  as  they  had  been 
spared  by  earlier  riflers  of  the  tomb,  were  sumptuously  adorned 
with  gilding  and  niello  work. 

The  coat  of  mail  is  of  the  most  extreme  rarity  in  Germanic 
cemeteries  of  this  period  and  in  our  own  country  there  is 
hardly  a  trace  of  it  except  in  the  Derbyshire  tumulus  at  Benty 
Grange,  where  some  iron  chainwork  was  found  which  the 
explorer  suggested  might  have  been  *  sewn  up  within  or  upon 
a  doublet  of  strong  cloth '  so  as  to  form  a  sort  of  quilted 
cuirass.2  In  view  of  the  part  which  the  coat  of  mail  or 
*  byrnie '  plays  in  the  heroic  literature  of  the  period,  as  in 
Beowulf^  the  absence  of  it  from  the  tomb  inventories  is 
remarkable,  but  it  must  be  remarked  that  among  the  armed 
figures  in  the  representations  on  the  *  Franks  Casket '  in  the 
British  Museum  (p.  205  note  1)  some  are  shown  with  coats  of 
mail,  PL  lxxxi,  7  (p.  377).  It  must  be  remembered  also 
that  the  heroic  poems  as  we  have  them  are  later  than  the  finds, 
and  the  Germanic  warrior  of  the  early  migration  period  pre- 
ferred to  have  his  limbs  free,  caring  more  for  weapons  of 
offence  than  for  protective  ones.  The  Benty  Grange  inter- 
ment is  late  (p.  772).  Coats  of  mail  were  worn  by  the  Roman 
soldiers  who  may  have  borrowed  the  equipment  from  the 
East,  but  Dr.  Grobbels  thinks  the  Gammertingen  mail 
German  work.3 

Much  the  same  may  be  said  about  the  helmet.  It  is 
extremely  rare  in  Germanic  finds,  less  than  a  dozen  examples 

1  Now  in  the  Pierpont  Morgan  Collection,  New  York.  Seymour  de  Ricci, 
Catalogue  of  a  Collection  of  Merovingian  Antiquities  belonging  to  J.  Tierpont 
Morgan,  Paris,  19 10.     Plates  x  and  xi. 

2  Bateman,  Ten  Tears'  Diggings,  1861,  p.  32. 

3  Grobbels,  p.  35. 


HELMET  AND  SHIELDS 


2,  J,  are  Continental  pieces 


THE  HELMET  195 

being  known,1  and  is  generally  of  a  conical  shape  perhaps 
adopted  from  oriental  sources  ;  it  is  constructed  in  a  system  of 
framework  and  filling  that  we  shall  see  illustrated  in  a  remark- 
able shield  boss  found  at  Farthingdown,  Surrey,  PI.  xxni,  3. 
The  one  helmet  found  in  England  is  of  this  character  but  is 
in  some  respects  unique.  It  was  found  in  the  Benty  Grange 
tumulus  just  referred  to  and  is  now  in  the  Museum  at  Sheffield, 
PI.  xxi,  1.  It  is  composed  of  a  framework  of  iron  bands, 
which  is  all  that  is  seen  in  the  photograph,  and  Mr.  Bateman 
says  '  from  the  impression  on  the  metal  it  is  evident  that  the 
outside  was  covered  with  plates  of  horn  disposed  diagonally 
so  as  to  produce  a  herring-bone  pattern,' 2  whence  we  can 
gather  that  it  looked  like  a  Roman  *  Schuppenpanzer '  or 
'  lorica  squamata '  that  was  coated  with  protective  scales. 
Now  Ammianus  Marcellinus 3  tells  his  readers  that  the  Quadi 
wore  breastplates  made  of  horn  scraped  and  polished  affixed  to 
doublets  of  linen,  so  that  the  scales  of  horn  were  like  a  bird's 
feathers,  and  Sarmatian  horsemen  appear  to  be  equipped  in 
this  fashion  on  the  Trajan  Column.  The  Benty  Grange 
helmet  is  an  Anglo-Saxon  example  of  this  technique.  It  has 
another  very  interesting  peculiarity  that  the  figure  of  an  animal, 
evidently  a  boar,  wrought  in  iron  and  standing  on  a  plate  of 
bronze  is  affixed  to  the  summit  in  the  form  of  a  crest.  Charles 
Roach  Smith  in  a  notice  of  the  Benty  Grange  find4  quotes 
some  apposite  passages  from  northern  heroic  literature  in  which 
the  boar  figures  as  a  charm  upon  a  helmet.  For  example, 
when  Beowulf  arms  for  the  raid  upon  the  mother  of  Grendel 
he  dons  a  casque  which  a  weapon  smith  had  '  set  round  with 
boar  figures  so  that  never  might  brand  nor  war-blades  make 
any  impression  upon  it.' 5 

1  Grobbels,  pp.  7-33.  The  most  recent  find  was  made  in  Belgium  and 
is  described  by  Baron  de  Loe,  D'ecouverte  (Tun  Casque  dans  une  tombe  franque  a 
Trivieres,  Trovince  de  Hainault,  Brussels,  19 10. 

2  Ten  Years'  Diggings,  p.  30.  3  Hist  Rom.,  xvn,  xii.  2. 
4  Coll  Ant.,  11,  238  f. 

6  The  Deeds  of  Beowulj,  by  John  Earle,  Oxford,  1892,  p.  47,  line  1453. 


196  THE  SHIELD 

But  the  Benty  Grange  helmet  bears  another  device.  On 
the  front  of  it  over  the  forehead,  on  the  extreme  left  in  the 
photograph,  is  a  silver  cross,  and  the  form  of  this  is  given  in 
the  inset  drawing  above.  Now  on  one  of  the  few  Germanic 
helmets  preserved  on  the  Continent,  that  in  the  Library  at 
Grenoble  found  at  Vezeronce  near  Vienne  on  the  Rhone  and 
supposed  to  have  been  lost  at  the  battle  there  between  the 
Franks  and  Burgundians  in  524,  there  occurs  in  the  same 
position  and  also  elsewhere  in  the  ornamentation  a  cross  that 
is  recognized  as  being  a  charm  or  apotropaion.1  Hence  it  is 
clear  that  the  wearer  of  the  Benty  Grange  helmet,  which  may 
be  dated  to  VII,  was  making  the  best  of  the  two  religions 
available  at  the  time  and  uniting  a  pagan  with  the  Christian 
prophylactic.  On  a  leathern  drinking  cup  found  in  the  same 
tumulus  there  were  also  two  silver  crosses.  On  Leckhampton 
Hill,  near  Cheltenham,  there  were  found  on  the  skull  of  a 
skeleton  the  remains  of  what  may  have  been  the  framework  of 
a  similar  headpiece.2  These  two  discoveries  seem  to  exhaust 
the  subject  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  helmet. 

THE  SHIELD 

The  only  weapon  of  defence  represented  at  Bifrons,  and 
as  a  rule  in  Anglo-Saxon  cemeteries  as  a  whole,  is  the  shield. 
The  shield  was  apparently  very  commonly  borne  by  the 
Germanic  man-at-arms.  The  Franks  who  descended  into 
Italy  in  539  a.d.,  100,000  strong,  had  each  a  shield,3  and  so 
had  their  Alamannic  allies  who  fought  with  them  against 
Narses  at  Capua.4  That  these  might  be  of  a  rough  and  ready 
order  is  shown  by  the  fact  that,  when  Theodoric  was  leading 
his  Ostrogoths  on  the  eventful  march  into  Italy  in  488,  his 
soldiers  could  only  oppose  shields  of  wicker  work  to  the  lance 
thrusts  of  enemies  who  met  them  on  the  way.5      Hence  it  is 

1  Grobbels,  p.  15.  2  Coll.  Ant.,  11,  238. 

3  Dr.  Thomas  Hodgkin,  Italy  andber  Invaders,  Oxford,  1 895,  etc.,  iv,  309. 

4  ibid.,  v.  40.  5  ibid.,  m,  187. 


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FORM  AND  SIZE  OF  SHIELDS  197 

possible  that  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  were 
always  supplied  with  shields,  but  when  these  were  wholly  of 
perishable  materials  they  may  have  decayed  away.  In  the 
cemeteries  with  which  we  are  concerned  the  presence  of  the 
shield  is  only  attested  by  the  metal  mounts,  which  have  sur- 
vived while  the  wooden  orb  of  the  buckler  has  passed  out  of 
existence.  These  mounts  may  have  belonged  only  to  the 
shields  of  the  well-to-do,  but  in  any  case  they  are  fairly 
numerous  and  occur  at  Bifrons  as  in  every  other  large 
cemetery. 

These  surviving  parts  of  the  shield  present  practically  the 
same  shapes  all  over  the  Anglo-Saxon  area,  but  there  are  some 
significant  differences  of  detail  in  the  forms  that  are  of  chrono- 
logical import.  The  Anglo-Saxon  shield  appears  to  have  been 
an  orb  of  light  wood,  generally  circular,  though  in  the  cemetery 
at  Bifrons  and  also  at  Long  Wittenham,  Berks,1  traces  showed 
that  there  it  was  oblong  or  oval,2  varying  in  diameter  from 
about  18  3  to  30 4  in.,  by  a  thickness  of  as  little  as  J-  in.6  to 
f  in.6  The  shield  was  held  not  by  passing  the  arm  through 
loops  but  in  one  hand,  and  for  this  purpose  a  round  hole, 
about  2^  or  4  in.  across,  is  cut  in  the  centre  of  the  orb  and 
crossed  by  a  bar  that  was  grasped  by  the  fingers  of  the  left 
hand.  In  two  cases,  at  Brighton  Museum  and  in  an  umbo 
found  at  Brighthampton,  Oxon,7  a  portion  of  the  skeleton  of 
the  hand  still  adhered  to  the  rusted  iron  of  the  handle.  For 
the  protection  of  the  hand  the  aperture  in  the  shield  orb  is 
covered  with  a  hollow  boss  of  iron  projecting  some  3^-  in.  to  6  in. 
and  called  generally  by  its  Latin  name  '  umbo.'     This  umbo 

1  Archaeologia,  xxxvin,  136. 

2  As  also  at  Reichenhall  in  Bavaria,  Rekbenball,  p.  81. 

3  At  Chessell  Down,  Isle  of  Wight,  Hants,  and  Sarre,  Kent. 

4  At  Ringmer  above  Lewes,  Sussex,  and  Folkestone,  Kent. 

5  Marston  St.  Lawrence,  Arcbaeologia,  xlviii,  334;  Kempston,  Coll.  Ant., 
vi,  205. 

6  Inventorium  Sepulchrale,  pp.  5,  10,  116,  also  Brighton  Museum. 

7  Arcbaeologia,  xxxvn,  391. 


198  THE  UMBO 

was  attached  to  the  woodwork  by  means  of  rivets  run  through 
holes  in  a  horizontal  rim  like  the  brim  of  a  hat  at  its  base,  and 
similar  rivets  fastened  the  handle  bar,  which  was  extended 
sometimes  on  each  side  so  as  to  obtain  a  firm  grip  of  the  wood. 
An  extended  handle  of  the  kind  is  shown  PJ.  xxu,  i,  and  one 
at  Colchester  that  crossed  the  hollow  of  the  umbo  and  branched 
out  on  to  the  wood  beyond  its  rim  on  the  same  Plate,  No.  3. 
Other  rivets  were  occasionally  disposed  round  the  outer  margin 
of  the  orb,  as  at  Folkestone,  Kent.  These  rivets  are  often 
preserved  and  may,  as  in  the  case  just  mentioned,  give  the 
size  of  the  orb,  while  by  measuring  the  length  of  their  shank 
an  estimate  can  be  made  of  the  thickness  of  the  wood  of  the 
shield.  This  is  often  curiously  thin,  but  not  so  thin  in  this 
country  as  in  the  case  of  the  numerous  shields  from  the  finds 
of  about  IV  in  the  moors  of  Schleswig,  preserved  now  in  the 
Museum  at  Kiel.  The  boards  of  these  Thorsberg  and  Nydam 
shields  vary  in  thickness  from  about  \  in.  to  ^  in.,1  and  they 
are  not  in  any  effective  way  braced  or  strengthened  by  metal. 
They  have  evidently  seen  service  as  may  be  judged  by  the 
dints  in  the  umbos  and  the  holes  in  the  woodwork,  but  what 
protection  they  can  have  afforded  against  a  severe  blow  or 
thrust  it  is  difficult  to  see.  A  restored  example  of  a  Thorsberg 
shield  in  the  Museum  at  Copenhagen  is  given  PI.  xxi,  2,  and 
conveys  an  idea  of  the  general  aspect  of  an  Anglo-Saxon  piece 
of  the  kind. 

The  umbo  is  here  of  a  plain  hemispherical  form  that 
Dr.  Salin  rightly  notes  is  derived  from  the  usual  Roman  type, 
but  the  Germanic  umbos  proper  are  of  more  elaborate  and  vary- 
ing shapes.  The  most  common  shape,  found  in  all  parts  of  the 
country,  is  called  c  mammiform '  from  a  certain  resemblance  to 
the  female  breast.2  From  the  inner  edge  of  the  horizontal  rim 
there  rises  an  erect  cylindrical  piece  that  is  sometimes  worked 

1  Engelhardt,  Denmark  in  the  Early  Iron  Age,  Lond.,  1866,  p.  48,  and 
Thorsberg,  pi.  8. 

2  Fourteen  examples  were  found  at  Bifrons. 


XXIII 


tacing  p.  199 


UMBOS 


5,  6,  are  Continental ;  y,  British 


FORMS  OF  THE  UMBO  199 

into  a  concave  profile.  This  carries  a  hemispherical  cover, 
varying  in  section  but  most  often  rather  depressed,  that 
commonly  rises  in  the  centre  to  a  narrow  stem  surmounted  by 
a  flat  button  of  the  shape  of  the  rivet  heads  already  mentioned. 
This  flat  button  and  the  rivet  heads  are  sometimes  plated  with 
silver,  as  at  Folkestone  and  other  places  in  Kent,  and  there  are 
two  instances,  from  Cottesmore,  Rutland,  and  Barton  Seagrave, 
Northants,  where  the  button  is  worked  with  ornament  in  relief 
and  gilded.  This  sort  of  ornamentation  is  most  common 
abroad  on  the  shield  bosses  of  the  Lombards.  An  example 
from  the  Rhineland  at  Mainz  is  given  No.  3  on  PI.  xxi. 
The  specimens  from  Stowting  and  from  Buttsole,  Kent, 
PI.  xxii,  4  and  2  (c)  show  two  varieties  of  the  type.  No.  4 
has  been  pierced  by  two  formidable  lance  thrusts. 

The  other  examples  in  PI.  xxii,  No.  2  show  different  forms 
of  which  the  centre  one,  (b),  introduces  us  to  a  distinct  variety. 
Here  the  form  is  conical  and  ends  above  with  a  point.  Umbos 
of  this  kind  are  not  very  common  and  appear  less  often  on  the 
Continent  than  in  this  country.  They  have  been  found  here 
in  Kent  (Sibertswold,  now  at  Liverpool),  Surrey  (Farthing- 
down,  in  Ashmolean),  Essex  (Colchester,  in  Museum),  Beds 
(Kempston,  in  British  Museum),  Wilts  (Rodmead  Down,  at 
Devizes),  Derbyshire  (Tissington,  in  British  Museum)  and 
other  places.  One  of  the  best  examples  was  found  at  Sitting- 
bourne,  Kent,  and  is  now  in  the  Museum  at  Dover.  It  is 
*l\  in.  high  by  an  external  diameter  of  4J  in.,  PI.  xxin,  1. 
The  horizontal  rim,  as  is  the  case  with  other  examples,  is  com- 
paratively narrow.  These  pointed  terminations  suggest  the 
inquiry  whether  the  umbo  of  such  a  shield  can  have  been  used 
at  close  quarters  as  a  weapon  of  offence.  That  this  is  possible 
can  be  inferred  from  a  passage  in  Tacitus,  Agricola,  xxxvi, 
where  the  expression  i  ferire  umbonibus  '  is  used  of  Batavian 
auxiliaries  in  hand-to-hand  battle  against  the  Britons  or  rather 
Caledonians.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  umbos  with  long  spikes 
inserted  into  their  summits  have  been  found  on  the  Late- Celtic 


200  ,  THE  UMBO 

site  of  Hunsbury  and  are  now  in  the  Northampton  Museum. 
These  evidently  have  a  warlike  purpose,  see  PL  xxin,  7,  but 
with  regard  to  the  Saxon  examples,  if  it  had  been  found  that 
use  could  be  made  of  them  for  fighting  one  cannot  understand 
why  the  overwhelming  majority  of  Anglo-Saxon  shield  bosses 
should  have  been  furnished  with  a  button  that  made  any  such 
employment  impossible. 

The  chronological  point  connected  with  the  umbos  is  the 
following.  Nearly  all  the  mammiform  umbos  found  in  this 
country  are  dome-shaped  with  a  convex  outline,  but  on  the 
Continent  there  is  represented  an  earlier  form  of  which  the 
upward  curve  of  the  dome  is  a  concave  one.  It  is  a  Late- 
Celtic  form  that  Professor  Bela  Posta  notes x  was  diffused  later 
on  over  northern  and  western  Europe,  and  typical  examples 
are  the  gilded  umbo  found  in  the  chieftain's  tomb  at  Vermand 
and  dating  from  before  400  a.d.,2  and  that  from  Herpaly 
at  Budapest,  figured  later  on,  PI.  lii'i,  10  (p.  305).  This 
same  form  is  constantly  represented  in  the  cemeteries  in  the 
region  of  the  Lower  Elbe  that  are  an  archaeological  generation 
earlier  than  those  in  our  own  country.  Two  at  Liineburg, 
from  the  cemeteries  of  Nienbiittel  and  Boltersen,  are  shown 
PI.  xxin,  5,  6.  The  derivation  from  that  region  of  some 
of  the  forms  met  with  in  English  cemeteries  of  the  first 
period  of  the  Teutonic  occupation  is  a  fundamental  fact  in 
Anglo-Saxon  archaeology  to  which  reference  will  often  have 
to  be  made.  It  so  happens  that  in  one  particular  British 
region,  the  valley  of  the  Thames  in  its  upper  part,  umbos  of 
this  abnormal  form  are  met  with,  see  for  example  the  specimen 
PI.  xxin,  4,  from  Fairford,  Gloucestershire.  This  agrees  with 
other  indications  of  a  very  early  Teutonic  colonization  of  this 
region  which  will  be  dealt  with  in  a  later  chapter. 

The  technique  of  the  umbos  must  not  be  passed  over 

1  Arckeologische  Studien  auf  Russiscbem  Bodert,  Budapest,  1905,  1,  29. 

2  de  Ricci,  Catalogue,  I.e. 


ANGLO-SAXON  SMITHING  201 

without  a  word.  They  are  very  good  examples  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  weapon  smith's  craft.  He  was  a  personage  of 
some  consequence  for  his  weregild  was  a  high  one,  and  he 
knew  how  to  secure  good  material  and  to  manipulate  it  in 
effective  fashion.  It  must  be  remembered  that  he  did  not 
dispose  of  the  rolled  iron  or  mild  steel  plates  prepared  in 
modern  times  by  machinery,  but  had  to  hammer  everything  out 
or  up  from  the  lump.  The  process  was  all  to  the  advantage 
of  the  work  for  it  rendered  the  metal  far  more  compact  and 
tough,  and  explains  what  J.  Y.  Akerman  observed  at  Frilford, 
Berks,  when  a  workman's  pick  was  driven  right  through  an 
umbo  without  breaking  it  up.1  Save  in  one  remarkable  case 
presently  to  be  considered  these  umbos  are  all  in  one  piece  and 
the  forging  of  them  was  an  affair  of  judgement  and  skill.  A 
broken  umbo  in  the  Grange  Wood  Museum  near  Croydon, 
PI.  xxm,  2,  will  illustrate  the  technique.  The  thickness  of 
the  metal  varies  in  the  Croydon  piece  from  ^  in.  at  the  top 
to  -j^  in.  below,  and  this  shows  that  it  was  beaten  from  the 
centre  downwards.  The  blows  of  the  hammer  drive  the  metal 
before  them  and  thicken  it,  while  it  is  thinned  where  the 
strokes  actually  fall.  The  craftsman  starting  with  a  flat  lump 
of  iron  of  roughly  circular  shape  and  of  the  thickness  his  ex- 
perience had  shown  necessary  would  beat  it  over  the  rounded 
head  of  a  slender  stake  till  he  had  forced  the  central  part  up 
into  a  knob.  Heating  this  up  again  and  again  he  would  strike 
into  the  knob  from  the  side  with  the  rounded  edge  of  a  suit- 
able hammer  till  he  had  worked  it  into  a  narrow  stem  with  a 
lump  at  the  top  that  would  form  the  terminal  stud  or  button. 
Transferring  the  piece  then  to  a  rounded  block  of  broader 
mass  he  would  commence  to  beat  the  iron  out  from  the  centre 
towards  the  circumference  thinning  and  shaping  it  in  obedience 
to  his  will,  and  securing  the  exact  profile  desired,  with  a  suit- 
able horizontal  rim  the  outer  circumference  of  which  would  be 
trimmed  with  the  chisel.  The  result  would  be  a  hollow  dome 
1  Proc.  Soc.  Ant.y  2nd  Ser.,  m,  136. 


202  THE  UMBO 

carrying  at  the  apex  a  solid  stem  crowned  by  the  button,  no 
welding  or  other  join  being  required. 

The  exceptional  umbo  referred  to  above  is  constructed  in 
quite  a  different  fashion.  It  was  found  with  a  similar  piece 
at  Farthingdown,  Surrey,  and  is  now  in  the  Ashmolean  at 
Oxford,  PI.  xxiii,  3.  Here  the  form  is  the  conical  one  already 
illustrated  but  the  piece  is  put  together  with  a  framework  and 
filling  after  the  pattern  of  the  conical  helmets.  There  are  six 
ribs  fashioned  with  the  section  of  T  iron,  and  the  plates  are 
carefully  fitted  in  between  these  with  strengthening  pieces 
cunningly  adapted.1 

On  the  question  of  the  external  finish  of  the  shield  we 
have  practically  no  information.  From  the  fact  that  in  the 
Laws  of  iEthelstan  the  shieldwright  who  used  inferior  leather 
was  to  be  fined  we  may  infer  that  a  covering  of  hide  was 
usual,  but  this  covering  if  it  existed  seems  to  have  left  no 
trace  in  the  graves.  Whether  colour  or  painted  devices 
diversified  the  surface,  as  was  common  in  classical  and  also 
in  mediaeval  times,  we  can  only  conjecture.  Certain  small  flat 
appliques  have  been  found  from  time  to  time  in  the  graves 
which  are  supposed  to  have  been  attached  to  the  face  of  the 
shield,  and  these  must  not  be  passed  over.  The  most  in- 
teresting are  some  sketchy  representations  of  the  form  of  a 
fish  of  which  examples  have  been  found  at  Kempston,  Beds  ; 
Warren  Hill,  Suffolk,  and  other  places  ;  and  these  there  is 
little  doubt  were  Christian  symbols  applied  to  the  shield 
like  the  cross  on  the  Benty  Grange  helmet  with  prophylactic 
intent.  PL  xxiv,  1,  shows  the  Suffolk  example  in  the 
collection  of  Mr.  Samuel  Fenton  in  London.  No.  4  on  the 
same  Plate  is  an  interesting  object  in  the  Museum  at  Canter- 
bury,2 consisting  in  an  applique  in  gilded  bronze  with  three 
rivets  at  the  back  not  pierced  with  holes,  by  means  of  which 

1  Surrey  Archaeological  Collections,  vi,  108. 

2  J.  Brent,  Antiquities  in  the   Museum,    Canterbury,   Canterbury,    1875, 
p.  46,  no.  355. 


fa 
o 

fa 
& 

fa 
fa 
< 


APPLIQUES  203 

it  can  have  been  fixed  on  to  some  surface,  the  rivets  being 
beaten  out  at  the  back  when  the  piece  was  in  position.  This 
surface  need  not  of  course  have  been  that  of  a  shield.  The 
form  and  ornamentation  of  the  applique  are  worth  a  moment's 
attention.  The  former  is  derived  from  the  fibulae  in  the  shape 
of  birds  with  curved  beak  which  originally  Gothic  were 
much  in  favour  with  the  Franks  in  V  and  VI.  Here  the 
curved  beak  though  much  conventionalized  is  clearly  in 
evidence  curling  round  the  hole  in  the  top  of  the  piece. 
Below  the  beak  and  between  it  and  the  body,  which  is  separated 
from  the  head  by  a  band  like  a  ruff  round  the  neck,  there  is 
introduced  a  very  characteristic  bit  of  conventionalized  animal 
ornament,  which  from  the  beginning  of  VI  becomes  extremely 
common  in  Teutonic  tomb  furniture.  It  is  best  seen  when 
turned  flat  with  the  beak  to  the  spectator's  right.  Nearest  the 
beak  appears  the  eye  of  the  creature  with  the  brow  curving 
round  it,  and  the  rest  of  the  dismembered  animal  consists  only 
in  two  legs,  a  larger  one  the  joint  of  which  forms  the  sharp 
projection  below  to  the  left  while  the  claws  of  the  foot 
terminate  the  limb  underneath  in  the  direction  of  the  beak. 
A  smaller  leg  and  claw  find  room  above,  under  and  to  the 
left  of  the  eye.  This  subject  of  conventionalized  animal 
ornament  will  of  course  be  fully  treated  in  the  sequel,  see 
Chapter  vi  (p.  325  f.). 

In  connection  with  appliques  a  notice  may  be  introduced 
here  of  a  unique  set  of  objects  of  the  kind  preserved  in  the 
Maidstone  Museum.  They  were  found  at  Buttsole  a  little 
inland  from  Eastry  in  Kent,  on  the  Roman  road  from  Rich- 
borough  to  Dover.  An  inlet  of  the  sea  ran  in  old  time  nearly 
to  Eastry,  and  the  place  was  a  very  natural  one  for  a  settlement. 
The  character  of  this  find  is  so  uncommon  that  the  suggestion 
has  been  made  that  a  small  body  of  people  of  a  different  stock 
from  the  general  population  of  the  region  had  fixed  their 
habitation  on  the  spot,  and  that  this  would  account  for  the 
peculiar  character  of  these  objects  and  of  others  afterwards 


204  THE  SWORD 

to  be  noticed  from  the  same  find.  They  are  discussed  by- 
Mr.  George  Payne  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  of  Anti- 
quaries, Vol.  xv,  p.  178  f.,  though  he  indicates  erroneously 
their  provenance  as  Dover.1  He  considers  the  appliques, 
which  are  without  a  parallel  in  Kentish  graves,  as  ornaments 
of  a  belt  or  of  horse  trappings.  They  have  at  the  back  tangs 
for  fixing  them  that  are  in  some  cases  pierced,  while  in  others 
they  are  evidently  meant  to  be  beaten  out  rivet-fashion  when 
in  place.  PI.  xxiv,  5  shows,  enlaj^ged  twice  linear,  the  back 
of  one  of  the  pieces  with  the  rivets  and  their  '  washers.'  The 
surface  to  which  they  were  fixed  must  have  been  |  in.  thick. 
The  fish  form  it  will  be  seen  is  represented,  see  No.  3,  slightly 
enlarged,  also  the  equal  armed  cross,  No.  5,  and  the  bird  with 
hooked  beak.  An  ornament  made  up  of  two  such  birds  with 
bodies  joined,  in  the  corner  close  to  the  number  '  3,'  has 
parallels  abroad  and  also  occasionally  at  home,  PI.  xlviii,  7. 
The  objects  are  beautifully  made  in  cast  bronze,  chased,  and 
parcel  gilt.  The  largest  piece  in  the  centre  and  that  above  it 
to  the  left  have  a  zoomorphic  aspect.  No.  6  is  an  enlarged 
view  of  a  stud  with  a  perforated  tongue  at  the  back,  after  the 
fashion  of  some  of  the  Buttsole  appliques.  It  will  be  noticed 
later  on  in  connection  with  the  subject  of  the  buckle  (p.  359). 


THE  SWORD 

Of  arms  of  offence  the  most  important  though  by  no  means 
the  most  common  was  the  sword,  and  the  weapon  possesses 
a  dignity  as  well  as  an  archaeological  interest  that  justifies  an 
extended  treatment.  On  the  position  of  the  sword  in  early 
times  Kemble  remarks 2  that  it  is  the  alter  ego  of  the  man,  his 
most  trusty  and  constant  companion.     '  His  arrow  he  shoots 

1  Mr.  Hubert  Elgar,  of  the  Kent  Archaeological  Society's  Museum  at 
Maidstone,  has  recently  discovered  documents  which  show  that  Buttsole  was 
as  a  fact  the  locality  of  the  find.     See  postea  (p.  708). 

2  Horae  Ferales,  Lond.  1863,  47. 


AN  ARISTOCRATIC  WEAPON  205 

away  ;  spears  and  javelins  are  only  useful  at  a  distance,  but  on 
his  sword  he  can  rely  in  hand  to  hand  conflict,  face  to  face 
with  his  enemy  :  his  sword  is  with  him  always  ;  in  life  and  in 
death  it  is  the  sacred  emblem  of  his  freedom  and  his  dignity, 
and  therefore  as  the  sword  is  so  are  the  people  and  the  age.' 
The  last  phrase  may  convey  the  false  impression  that  the  sword 
is  the  common  arm  of  the  fighting  men  of  a  nation.  This  is 
however  not  the  case.  It  is  as  a  rule  an  aristocratic  weapon 
the  appanage  of  the  few,1  and  this  partly  explains  the  romantic 
associations  that  have  gathered  round  it.  The  democratic 
weapon  is  the  spear,  and  the  old  phrase,  that  occurs  in  King 
Alfred's  Will,  'the  spear  half  and  the  spindle  half,'  may  be 
quoted  in  illustration.  In  the  modern  army  the  sword  dis- 
tinguishes the  officer,  and  the  bayonet,  the  representative  of 
the  older  spear,  is  the  weapon  of  close  fighting  for  the  rank 
and  file.  So  apparently  it  has  been  among  most  military 
peoples,  the  Romans  forming  an  exception.  In  the  German 
Heldenbuch  it  is  noted  that  *  as  old  writings  say,  the  sword 
should  no  man  bear  save  he  be  noble  or  noble's  child,'  and 
the  name  of  the  chief  for  whom  the  blade  is  forged  may  be 
inscribed  upon  it,  as  on  the  hilt  of  the  sword  that  Beowulf 


1  In  the  interesting  series  of  representations  on  the  so-called  '  Franks 
Casket'  in  the  British  Museum,  almost  certainly  a  Northumbrian  work  of 
VII,  an  attacking  force,  that  of  the  Romans  upon  Jerusalem,  embraces  five 
men  whose  arms  are  shown,  and  of  these  the  two  foremost  carry  swords  the 
other  three  only  spears.  Among  the  assailants  of  the  House  of  Egil — who 
it  may  be  remarked  is  defending  himself  with  a  bow  and  arrows — of  five  men 
with  arms  of  offence  four  carry  swords  and  only  one  a  spear  alone.  Three 
hold  round  shields  of  the  pattern  already  discussed,  and  two  (with  one  in 
the  Jerusalem  scene)  wear  coats  of  mail.  In  the  Romulus  and  Remus  scene 
there  are  four  armed  figures  and  they  all  carry  spears  only.  This  important 
object  though  falling  within  the  present  limits  of  date  is,  with  its  figures, 
runic  inscriptions,  and  animal  and  other  ornament,  so  much  more  significant 
in  connection  with  the  carved  stones  than  with  the  tomb  furniture  that,  like 
the  Ormside  Bowl,  it  can  be  treated  more  suitably  in  a  future  volume.  Some 
of  the  figures  in  question  are  however  shown  later  on,  PI.  lxxxi  (p.  371). 


206  THE  SWORD 

finds  in  the  abode  of  Grendel  beneath  the  mere.1  The  sword 
itself  is  individualized  and  bears  its  name  like  the  war  horse. 
Siegfrid's  '  Balmung,'  Beowulf's  c  Nasgling,'  Arthur's  '  Ex- 
calibur,'  are  as  well  known  as  Gran  or  Bucephalus.  It  claims 
a  sort  of  personal  distinction,  and  for  the  making  of  it  the 
finest  craftsmanship,  for  the  adornment  of  it  the  most  elaborate 
enrichment,  have  been  demanded.  One  knows  how  in  northern 
fable  the  swordsmith  becomes  a  personage  of  superhuman  gifts, 
and  in  civilized  days  Professor  Hampel  has  remarked 2  c  to 
produce  really  good  sword-blades  there  is  needed  not  only 
excellent  material,  but  also  a  traditional  practice  of  established 
repute  bound  to  the  locality  and  carried  on  through  many 
generations/  Hence  the  manufacture  of  swords  has  connected 
itself  with  special  localities  and  families,  and  ( it  is  an  interesting 
fact  that  the  peculiar  skill  of  the  swordsmith  is  in  England  so 
far  hereditary  that  it  can  be  traced  back  in  the  same  families 
for  several  generations.'3  The  hilt  of  the  sword  Beowulf  finds 
is  banded  and  inlaid  with  purest  gold  and  wrought  with  lacertine 
ornament.  Of  Excalibur  '  the  pommel  and  haft  were  all  of 
precious  stones.'  Literature  has  in  every  age  exalted  the  sword 
and  flung  round  it  the  halo  of  romance.  Othello's  words  thrill 
with  emotion  when  he  holds  up  to  view  his  sheathed  blade, 

1 1  have  a  weapon  .  .  . 
It  is  a  sword  of  Spain,  the  ice-brook's  temper  .  .  . 
A  better  never  did  itself  sustain 
Upon  a  soldier's  thigh.' 

In  these  considerations  an  explanation  has  been  sought  for 

1  Earle's  Beowulf,  p.  55,  line  1695.  'On  the  mounting  of  sheer  gold 
there  was  with  rune-staves  rightly  inscribed,  set  down  and  said,  for  whom 
that  sword  had  erst  been  wrought.'  It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  on  a  sword 
pommel  from  Gilton  in  the  Museum  of  Liverpool  there  is  an  inscription  in 
(illegible)  runes  that  may  conceivably  give  the  name  of  the  possessor.  See 
Akerman's  Pagan  Saxondom,  pi.  xxiv. 

2  A  It ert biimer  in  Vngarn,  1,  210. 

3  Enc.  Brit,  nth  Ed.,  xxvi,  272,  art.  '  Sword.' 


STATISTICS  OF  SWORDS  207 

the  fact  that  while  some  splendid  sword  hilts  and  scabbard 
mounts  like  those  found  in  the  tomb  of  Childeric,1  at  Pouan,2 
or  at  Flonheim,8  have  come  to  light  in  Teutonic  graves,  the 
total  number  of  swords  excavated  in  proportion  to  other 
weapons  is  very  small.  When  Lindenschmit  wrote  his 
Handbuch  in  the  '8o's  of  the  last  century  he  could  say  that  at 
any  rate  in  Germany  nearly  every  man's  grave  contained  a 
spear  head,  whereas,  except  along  the  middle  Rhine,  where 
swords  are  more  numerous,  the  aristocratic  weapon  was  rarely 
met  with.4  It  has  been  calculated  that  in  the  graveyards  of 
the  Ripuarian  Franks  on  the  middle  Rhine,  dating  from  the 
middle  of  VI,  from  8  to  10  per  cent,  of  the  tombs  have 
furnished  swords,  but  only  two  long  swords  are  mentioned  by 
the  explorer  of  the  large  Bavarian  cemetery  at  Reichenhall 
further  to  the  east,  and  Hampel  only  reckons  three  as 
belonging  to  the  Germanic  section  of  the  graves  he  has 
explored  in  Hungary.5  In  Italy  the  recently  excavated 
Lombard  cemetery  at  Castel  Trosino  near  the  Adriatic  coast 
furnished  eight  sword  blades  from  about  358  tombs.  Many 
hundreds  of  Burgundian  graves  at  Charnay  produced  only  14 
swords,  while  there  were  none  at  all  in  the  graves  of  the  same 
people  at  Bel-Air  by  Lausanne.  In  Normandy  more  than 
1000  tombs  opened  by  the  Abbe  Cochet  yielded  up  half  a 
dozen  blades,  and  M.  Pilloy  writing  quite  recently6  about 
Frankish  cemeteries  uses  the  expression  '  les  rares  tombes  ou 
Ton  recueille  une  epee  a  deux  tranchants.'  At  Oyer  in  the 
Marne  district  2000  tombs  only  furnished  three  swords.7 
In  England  Faussett  found  only  two  in  the  308  tumuli  he 
opened  on  Kingston  Down,  though  he  secured  five  in  the  106 
graves  at  Gilton  and  six  in  the  181   at  Sibertswold.     Later 

1  Now  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale,  Paris. 

2  Now  at  Troyes.  3  In  the  Museum  at  Worms. 

4  Altertbumer  der  Merovingischen  Zeit,  pp.  163,  220. 

5  Altertbumer  in  Ungarn,  i,  187.  6  Etudes,  m,  13. 
7  de  Baye,  Industrie  Longobarde,  Paris,   1 888,  p.  12. 


208  THE  SWORD 

excavations  at  Sarre  in  Thanet  showed  that  one  grave  in  ten 
out  of  the  272  reported  contained  a  sword,  and  at  Bifrons  six 
or  seven  were  the  outcome  of  the  exploration  of  some  150 
graves.  At  Long  Wittenham,  Berks,  and  Little  Wilbraham 
in  Cambridgeshire,  in  each  case  in  from  180  to  190  graves, 
two  and  four  swords  were  found  ;  there  were  two  at 
Kempston,  Beds,  and  three  in  the  77  graves  opened  at 
Mitcham,  Surrey.  On  the  other  hand  no  swords  at  all  were 
found  in  the  important  cemeteries  of  Harnham  Hill,  Wilts  ; 
Frilford,  Berks ;  Sleaford,  Lincolnshire  ;  and  Marston  St.  L., 
Northants.  The  proportion  of  swords  to  interments  is  gener- 
ally held  to  be  greatest  at  Sarre,  one  in  ten,  and  Brighthampton, 
Oxon,  with  four  swords  in  less  than  60  graves,  has  come 
second,  but  the  recent  excavation  of  a  presumably  Jutish 
cemetery  at  Droxford,  Hants,  produced  six  swords  from 
graves  which  though  pronounced  '  numerous '  cannot  have 
made  up  a  very  large  graveyard.  It  is  remarkable  that  this 
cemetery  was  a  poor  one  in  its  tomb  furniture  generally,  and 
this  is  contrary  to  the  view  which  makes  the  wearer  of  the 
sword  always  a  man  of  substance,  and  which  is  supported  by 
the  case  of  Derbyshire,  where  though  three  swords  only  have 
been  found  they  were  all  associated  with  objects  denoting 
an  owner  of  rank.1  In  the  recently  excavated  cemetery  at 
Alfriston,  Sussex,  swords  were  comparatively  numerous,  six 
having  come  from  the  115  graves  first  excavated.  This 
cemetery  was  a  decidedly  rich  one,  as  the  chapter  on  fibulae 
will  show. 

If  the  sword  were  the  weapon  of  the  eorl  this  would  account 
for  its  comparative  rarity,  but  it  has  been  also  suggested  2  that 
these  arms  were  excluded  from  grave  deposits  because  they 
were  heirlooms  handed  down  from  father  to  son.     In  Beowulf 


1  Victoria  County  History,  Derbyshire,  1,  268. 

2  By  Charles  Roach  Smith  in  Inventorium  Sepulchrale,  p.  xxxvi,  and  more 
recently  by  Professor  Hampel,  Alterthi'imer  in  Ungarn,  1,  186. 


XXV 


facing  p.  209 


ANGLO-SAXON  AND  OTHER  SWORDS 


xxy 


6,  7>  o-fe  Continental  specimens  5   8  is  Roman  j  10,  Piking 


PRESTIGE  OF  THE  SWORD  209 

the  chiefs1  ancestral  swords  are  mentioned,1  and  his  own  sword 
he  describes  as  l  the  ancient  heirloom,' 2  while  the  weapon 
with  the  wondrous  hilt  that  he  finds  in  Grendel's  lair  was  an 
antique  trophy.3  We  may  remember  also  the  numerous 
bequests  of  swords  in  the  wills  of  later  Anglo-Saxon  times 
printed  by  Thorpe  in  his  Diplomatorium,  and  the  place  that 
the  sword  holds  in  the  lists  of  Heriots  in  early  Teutonic  legis- 
lation. It  must  not  at  the  same  time  be  forgotten  that  such 
documents  are  of  much  later  date  than  the  pagan  sepulchres, 
though  the  parts  of  Beowulf  cited  may  seem  to  carry  us  back 
to  the  older  heroic  age.  The  principle  of  reserving  the  heir- 
loom if  it  were  really  an  old-established  one  might  be  expected 
to  result  in  the  almost  total  exclusion  of  swords  from  grave 
inventories,  whereas  as  a  matter  of  fact  their  rarity  is  by  no 
means  so  great.  Again  if  the  sword  of  the  chief  were  reserved 
as  something  too  precious  to  be  surrendered  to  the  tomb,4  a 
feeling  of  a  like  kind  might  well  have  operated  to  save  the 
costly  jewels  of  his  lady,  which  were  however,  like  the  Kingston 
brooch,  duly  consigned  to  the  darkness.  Another  way  of 
accounting  for  the  scarcity  of  the  sword  is  to  suppose  it  the 
weapon  exclusively  of  the  mounted  warrior,5  and  it  has  been 
said  that  it  was  too  heavy  to  be  used  by  a  man  on  foot.  But 
the  Gauls  who  fought  the  Romans  with  still  longer  and  heavier 
arms  were  infantry  soldiers.  The  discovery  in  a  number  of 
instances  of  spear  heads  in  the  same  grave  with  swords  pre- 
cludes the  supposition  just  noticed,  for  the  spear  which  was  not 
a  long  lance,  see  below,  is  pre-eminently  the  footman's  weapon. 
The  weapon  under  consideration,  as  found  in  Anglo-Saxon 

1  '  There  did   many  an   eorl   of  Beowulf's  unsheath  his  old  heirloom,' 
Earle's  Beotvulf,  p.  26,  line  800. 

2  ibid.,  p.  48,  line  1490.  3  ibid.,  p.  51,  line  1558. 

*  Professor  Ham  pel  says,  I.e.,  'wenn  es  besonders  werthvoll  war,  legte 
man  es  nicht  ins  Grab.' 

5  See  Lorange,  Den   Yngre  Jernaldcrs    $v<erd,  Bergen,   1889,  p.  79,  for 
the  use  of  the  later  Viking  sword  by  cavalry. 
in  o 


210  THE  SWORD 

graves,  possessed  a  broad  straight  two-edged  blade,  about 
two  feet  six  inches  long  ending  in  a  hilt  that  gave  it  four  or  five 
inches  more,1  about  two-and-a-quarter  inches  wide  at  the  hilt 
and  tapering  very  slightly  if  at  all  till  it  ended  abruptly  in  a 
rather  blunt  point.  The  blade  had  no  central  groove  nor 
median  rib.  The  hilt,  and  the  scabbard  which  was  generally 
of  thin  wood,  might  be  mounted,  covered,  and  artistically 
enriched  in  different  fashions,  the  latter  having  an  ornamental 
band  round  the  mouth  and  a  binding  of  metal,  also  often 
enriched,  round  the  bottom  of  the  sheath  forming  what  is 
known  as  the  '  chape.'  The  examples  from  Croydon  shown 
PH.  xxv,  3;  xxvn,  9,  are  as  complete  specimens  as  could 
easily  be  found.  The  first  is  2  ft.  9  in.  long  over  all,  and  pos- 
sesses the  metal  bands  round  the  opening  of  the  scabbard  and 
the  bronze  chape  for  the  protection  of  the  point.  PI.  xxvn,  9, 
shows  the  blade  and  hilt  alone.  It  measures  over  all  36^-  in. 
in  length,  5  in.  going  to  the  hilt,  and  tapers  slightly  in  width 
from  i\  in.  just  below  the  hilt  to  2  in.  near  the  point.  The 
sword  is  commonly  found  in  the  grave  lying  by  the  right 
side  of  the  skeleton  with  the  hilt  uppermost  and  has  nearly 
always  in  this  country  come  down  to  us  very  badly  corroded. 
The  upper  part  of  PI.  xxv  shows  a  group  of  these  swords 
from  different  localities  which  will  make  apparent  their  general 
likeness  wherever  they  occur.  Continental  examples  are  of 
exactly  the  same  character.  The  specimen,  PI.  xxv,  5, 
recently  found  at  Broadstairs,  Kent,  though  much  corroded  is 
useful  as  giving  a  well-preserved  point. 

The  technical  name  of  the  long  two-edged  sword  was 
1  spatha '  and  this  word,  of  Greek  origin  and  adopted  into 
Latin  through  which  it  became  the  modern  Italian  '  spada,' 
suggests  the  query  whether  the  object  as  well  as  the  appella- 

1  The  Brighthampton  sword  in  the  Ashmolean,  Oxford  (p.  223),  is  of 
exceptional  length  and  measures  3  ft.  2  in.  over  all.  As  to  the  question  of 
weight,  some  experiments  indicate  an  average  of  something  under  2  lbs. 
(pp.  633,  685). 


ROMAN  AND  GERMANIC  ARMS  211 

tion  was  not  of  classical  derivation.  This  introduces  us  to 
a  question  that  underlies  the  whole  subject  with  which  we 
have  to  deal,  the  question  of  the  true  relation  of  classical  and 
barbaric  elements  in  the  civilization  of  the  whole  period  and 
region.  There  is  hardly  a  product  or  an  appearance  that  will 
come  before  us  which  has  not  been  claimed  at  one  time  as 
Roman  at  another  time  as  barbaric,  while  in  the  case  of  very 
many  of  these  there  is  undoubtedly  a  mixture,  in  proportions 
often  very  hard  to  fix,  of  classic  and  northern  elements.  In 
the  matter  of  military  equipment  the  connection  of  Roman 
and  Teuton  would  be  particularly  close  for  it  was  by  serving 
in  the  auxiliary  forces  attached  to  the  legions  that  the  Germans 
became  acquainted  with  the  Roman  civilization.  Now  as  the 
Roman  soldier  carried  a  broad  two-edged  pointed  sword  it  is 
natural  that  some  writers  such  as  Lindenschmit  should  have 
derived  the  Germanic  spatha  from  the  'gladius'  of  the 
legionary.  The  former  indeed  excelled  the  latter  in  length, 
but  the  barbarians  were  noted  for  their  large  physique  and 
the  Roman  sword  in  their  grasp  might  easily  have  taken  on 
weight  of  metal.  The  difference  between  the  two  weapons 
is  however  one  of  shape  and  mode  of  use  as  well  as  of  size 
and  the  derivation  of  the  Teutonic  spatha  is  probably  inde- 
pendent of  Rome. 

The  fact  is  that,  in  spite  of  the  a  priori  likelihood  that 
Germanic  auxiliaries  would  borrow  and  transmit  to  their 
kinsfolk  the  Roman  panoply,  the  weapons  of  the  two  peoples 
were  markedly  different.  The  Roman  writers  themselves 
recognized  this,  and  in  a  passage  referring  to  the  time  of 
Tiberius  the  historian  Tacitus1  contrasts  the  sword  (gladius) 
and  pilum  of  the  legionary  with  the  German  shield  and  spear. 
This  difference  runs  through  the  two  equipments.  The 
Roman  helmet  was  globular,  that  of  the  Germans,  when  they 
wore  it,  was  of  the  conical  form  traditional  since  the  days  of 
Assyria  in  the  East.      The   Roman   shield  boss  was   hemi- 

1  Ann.,  11,  14. 


212  THE  SWORD 

spherical,  that  of  the  Teutons  of  a  pointed  and  conical  shape 
that  can  be  traced  back  to  Late-Celtic  times.  The  shield  of 
the  legionary  was  commonly  oblong,  though  various  shapes 
are  met  with  on  the  monuments,  while  that  of  the  Germans 
is  almost  invariably  circular.  The  second  or  smaller  cutting 
weapon  carried  by  the  soldier  as  well  as  his  sword  was  with 
the  Romans  a  two-edged  dagger,  with  the  Teutons  a  very 
characteristic  and  unclassical  single-edged  cutlass.  So  too 
with  the  weapon  now  under  question,  the  Roman  arm  called 
1  gladius  Hispanus '  was  essentially  a  short  sword,  and  unlike 
the  spatha  it  was  designed  for  the  thrust  rather  than  the 
blow,  for  which  purpose  it  was  furnished  with  a  sharper 
point.  It  was  specially  effective  at  close  quarters.  *  Hispano 
cingitur  gladio  ad  propiorem  habili  pugnam ' 1  writes  Livy 
of  T.  Manlius  about  to  engage  the  Gaulish  champion.  The 
Roman  swords  lastly  were  carried  by  all,  the  spatha  was  the 
weapon  of  the  chief. 

The  real  progenitor  of  the  spatha  was  the  long  iron 
sword  of  the  Celtic  peoples.  The  earliest  iron  swords  of 
the  '  Hallstatt '  period  were  influenced  by  the  former  ones  of 
bronze,  but  in  the  Late-Celtic  period  they  were  straightened 
out  and  elongated  to  the  proportions  of  the  great  Gallic 
swords,  some  of  which  in  the  Museum  at  St.  Germain  have 
a  total  length  of  a  metre,  or  about  3  ft.  3  in.  Swords  of  a 
similar  kind  were  found  at  the  station  of  La  Tene  near  the 
Lake  of  Neuchatel  in  a  singularly  good  state  of  preservation. 
They  have  long  narrow  thin  blades  of  hammered  iron  of 
good  quality,  but  are  very  pliable.  They  are  the  swords  that 
Polybius  in  a  well-known  passage  describes  as  buckling  after 
a  hard  stroke,  and  needing  to  be  straightened  out  under  the 
foot  before  the  impatient  warrior  could  deliver  a  second  blow. 

Long  straight  two-edged  blades  of  the  same  kind  are 
conspicuous  in  one  of  the  earliest  finds  of  the  period  of  the 
migrations,  that  in  the  moss  of  Nydam  in  Schleswig  dating 

1  Hist.,  vii,  x. 


NYDAM  AND  VIKING  BLADES  213 

from  about  IV  a.d.,  PI.  xxv,  6.     Though  Nydam  is  in  the 
far  north  some  of  the  objects  found  there  were  of  provincial- 
Roman  character,  and  on  several  of  these  blades  there  are 
names,  stamped  in  good  Roman  characters  but  sometimes  of 
a  semi-barbarous  sound.     In  one  case  also  runic  letters  occur. 
They  are  moreover  stamped  with  fabric  marks  as  products  of 
an  established  industry,  and  are  excellently  forged,  as  many 
as  90  per  cent,  being  '  damascened '  by  a  process  explained 
below.     Their  place  of  fabrication  was  probably  in  the  partly 
Romanized  districts  of  Germany  on  the  middle  and   lower 
Rhine,  where  at  a  later  date  under  the  Frankish  empire  the 
manufacture  and  export  of  sword  blades  was  a  staple  industry. 
These  swords  of  the  Schleswig  moss-finds  are  much  better 
weapons  than  the  spathas  of  the  Teutonic  graves,  and  bear 
in  some  respects  a  remarkable  resemblance  to  the  later  Viking 
brands  of  IX  and  X  that  made  themselves  a  terror  in  all 
western  lands.     The  resemblance  suggests  that  the  Nydam 
swords  were  the  direct  progenitors  of  the  Viking  ones,  but  the 
truth  seems  to  be  that  they  both  proceeded  at  different  epochs 
from  the  same  source.    This  question  has  been  discussed  in  the 
monograph  by  A.  L.  Lorange  of  the  Bergen  Museum  referred 
to  above  (p.  209  note  5).     He  makes  two  staple  manufactories 
of  sword   blades   both  within  what  afterwards   became   the 
dominions   of  the   Franks,  one,  the   Pyrenean   region   where 
the  old  Celtiberian  iron  industry  the  parent  of  the  *  gladius 
Hispanus*    had    so    long    flourished,    the    other    the    ancient 
Noricum  on  the  upper  Danube  the  centre  of  activity  in  iron 
working  that  spread  to  the  Rhineland  and  gave  to  Solingen 
near   Cologne  its   later  fame.      From    these  two  centres  he 
believes  proceeded  the    Viking   swords,    which   were    carried 
off"  as   booty  or    in   other   ways    imported    into    the    North, 
furnishing  to  the  Scandinavian   sea-rovers   the  weapons  with 
which    they    harried    the    western    peoples.     The    Rhineland 
centre,  we  have  just  suggested,  sent  up  at  an  earlier  epoch  the 
Nydam  blades,  and  these  are  no  doubt  the  real  originals  of 


214  THE  SWORD 

the  heroic  brands  referred  to  in  Beowulf  and  the  other 
northern  epics,  where  we  find  them  invested  with  a  mystic 
glory  through  their  rarity  and  outland  origin.  That  the 
first  and  best  swords  of  the  class  were  of  provincial-Roman 
make  does  not  of  course  preclude  excellence  in  the  armourer's 
craft  on  the  part  of  Teutonic  smiths  in  the  North,  who  may 
have  built  up  their  technique  on  imported  models  and  yet 
have  carried  it  to  a  fair  pitch  of  perfection  on  their  native 
anvils.  The  story  of  Sigurd's  sword  in  the  Niblung  cycle 
is  instructive.  It  was  first  given  to  his  father  Sigmund  by 
Odin,  which  means  that  it  was  an  outland  product  of  mystical 
virtues.  The  blade  was  afterwards  broken  against  Odin's 
spear,  but  the  pieces  were  carefully  preserved  to  be  ultimately 
reforged  in  a  local  smithy,  and  the  reconstituted  weapon 
became  the  incomparable  '  Gram.' 

Underlying  this  story  is  the  recognition  of  inherent  virtue 
in  the  material  of  a  blade  of  worth,  and  this  calls  attention  to 
the  similarity  in  material  as  well  as  shape  between  the  Nydam 
and  the  Viking  swords.  Both  were  long,  straight,  two-edged, 
and  slightly  tapering.  Both  were  marked  with  median  hollows 
along  the  blade  which  would  strengthen  them  by  introducing 
a  touch  of  tubular  construction,  but  both  were  also  treated  in 
the  middle  of  the  blade  by  the  process  known  as  '  damascening.' 
This  word  is  popularly  applied  to  work  in  textiles  and  in 
metals  in  which  a  variegated  surface  pattern  is  produced. 
The  weavers  and  metal  workers  of  mediaeval  Damascus  were 
specially  cunning  in  such  crafts  and  this  explains  the  name. 
The  kind  of  damascening  here  in  question  is  not  inlaying  but 
the  production  by  skilful  forging  of  wavy  devices  within  the 
texture  of  steel  and  iron.  Wires  or  strips  of  these  metals 
differing  in  quality  and  degrees  of  hardness  are  laid  side  by 
side  in  a  certain  order  and  then  at  white  heat  welded  together 
on  the  anvil.  With  a  little  ingenuity,  by  twisting  the  hammered 
piece  and  again  forging  it,  or  by  similar  artifices,  all  kinds 
of  mottlings  and  curly  patterns  may  be  produced,  and  these 


DAMASCENED  SWORD  BLADES  215 

come  out  more  strongly  when  the  metal  has  been  corroded 
by  time  and  the  softer  strands  have  been  eaten  away.  The 
Nydam  swords  show  this,  and  PI.  xxv,  7,  gives  a  character- 
istic specimen.  Blades  of  the  Danish  period  in  this  country 
and  Viking  weapons  generally  exhibit  the  same  technique.  A 
'  scramasax '  or  short  single-edged  sword  of  comparatively  late 
date  in  the  British  Museum  from  Little  Bealings,  Suffolk,  has 
an  unmistakable  band  of  damascening  along  the  blade,  and 
the  same  appears  on  certain  arms  of  the  Danish  epoch  in  the 
national  collection  from  Hurbuck  in  County  Durham. 

In  the  period  intermediate  between  that  of  the  Nydam 
deposits  and  the  age  of  the  sea-rovers  this  same  practice  of 
damascening  is  referred  to,  about  the  beginning  of  VI,  in  a 
letter  from  Theodoric  the  Great,  then  lord  of  Italy,  to  a  king 
of  the  Vandals  who  had  sent  him  from  North  Africa  a  present 
of  sword  blades  *  more  precious  than  gold.'  They  had  the 
hollow  median  groove  and  within  it  there  was  the  appearance 
as  of  twisted  worms  that  gave  an  effect  of  changing  light  and 
shade  as  if  the  steel  were  of  many  colours.1  These  blades, 
wherever  they  were  forged,  clearly  represent  the  same  tradition 
of  sword  making  that  we  have  just  been  following,  but  they 
are  not  the  spatha  blades  that  are  found  in  the  cemeteries  of 
the  migration  period.  These  spathas  of  V  to  VII,  whether  we 
find  them  at  home  or  on  the  Continent  are  not  damascened 
and  have  no  median  hollows,  and  seem  to  stand  apart  alike 
from  the  earlier  Nydam  pieces  and  those  of  the  later  Viking 
period.2  If  in  both  these  cases  we  are  dealing  with  a  pro- 
duction based  on  provincial-Roman  traditions  which  may 
also  have  been  operative  in  the  case  of  the  Vandal  blades, 
the  ordinary  spatha  of  the  cemeteries  of  our  period  may  re- 
present  an   independent   Germanic   effort   at   sword   making. 

1  Cassiodorus,  Variae  Epistolae,  w,  I.  The  translation  in  Dr.  Hodgkin's 
Letters  of  Cassiodorus,  Lond.,  1886,  p.  264,  is  faulty  for  there  is  no  question 
of 'enamel'  in  the  original. 

2  Den  Yngre  Jernalders  Svesrd,  p.  73. 


216  THE  SWORD 

Mr.  Lorange  admits  that  the  Germans  and  Scandinavians  had 
their  weapon  smiths,  expert  enough  in  such  tasks  as  forging 
umbos  and  spear  heads  but  not  competent  for  the  more  exalted 
achievements.  In  this  way  perhaps  we  may  explain  both  the 
inferior  character  as  a  weapon  of  the  spatha  and  its  unlikeness 
to  the  Nydam  and  the  Viking  swords. 

The  spatha  is  deficient  in  quality  as  a  blade,  and  also  as  we 
shall  see  in  a  moment  in  the  character  of  its  hilt,  and  it  has 
even  been  suggested  that  it  was  not  really  an  effective  weapon 
of  war  but  was  carried  by  the  man  of  rank  as  a  kind  of  badge 
of  office.  Such  a  theory  would  require  strong  evidence  to 
support  it.  It  implies  that  in  the  whole  long  and  illustrious 
history  of  the  sword  there  is  interpolated  a  chapter  in  which 
for  some  three  centuries  a  vigorous  fighting  people  ceased  to 
use  the  weapon  in  traditional  wise  and  turned  it  into  an  otiose 
utensil  of  ceremony.  Why,  we  may  ask,  should  the  sword 
have  been  not  a  sword  just  at  this  particular  epoch  in  its 
history  ?  It  seems  safer  to  assume  that  it  was  then  as  ever  a 
death-dealing  implement  though  not  one  of  any  great  efficiency. 

Archaeologically  speaking  the  most  important  part  of  the 
spatha  is  its  hilt,  for  this  exhibits  changes  that  can  be  arranged 
in  morphological  order  so  as  to  supply  indications  of  compara- 
tive dates.  In  the  normal  sword  of  all  times  and  countries 
the  blade  ends  at  the  upper  part  in  a  '  tang '  or  *  strig '  round 
which  is  placed  some  material  arranged  to  accommodate  the 
grip  of  the  hand.  To  prevent  this  material  slipping  off  the 
stem  of  metal  the  latter  has  to  be  beaten  out  at  the  end,  and 
this  is  generally  done  over  some  button  or  plate  or  block  that 
acts  as  a  '  washer '  and  by  projecting  laterally  as  far  as  the 
handle  or  beyond  it  keeps  this  from  being  drawn  out  of  the 
grasp.  In  this  way  is  evolved  that  part  of  the  normal  sword 
called  the  'pommel.'  Another  important  part  of  the  fully 
developed  hilt  is  what  is  known  as  the  { guard,'  consisting  in 
projections  of  metal  between  the  lower  part  of  the  grip  and 
the  blade,  so  as  to  protect  the  hand  from  a  blow  which  though 


MORPHOLOGY  OF  THE  SWORD  HILT  217 

turned  off"  by  the  blade  might  slide  up  it  and  reach  the  fingers, 
and  also  to  keep  the  hand  from  slipping  on  to  the  blade.  The 
guard  in  some  comparatively  modern  swords  becomes  the 
c  basket  hilt '  that  encloses  the  hand  in  a  hemisphere  of  steel 
open-work  which  corresponds  to  the  umbo  of  the  shield. 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  about  the  Teutonic  sword  of  the 
migration  period,  and  one  that  brings  into  light  its  comparative 
independence  of  older  traditions,  that  it  seems  to  exhibit  the 
development  of  the  hilt  from  its  very  beginnings,  as  if  no 
effective  swords  had  ever  previously  been  known.  The  far 
earlier  swords  of  the  Hallstatt  and  La  Tene  periods  had  hilts 
that  sometimes  assumed  elaborate  and  fanciful  forms.  The 
Roman  sword  had  a  serviceable  handle  with  a  pommel  gener- 
ally of  a  spherical  shape,  as  may  be  seen  in  an  example  in 
the  Edinburgh  Museum  of  Antiquities  from  Newstead, 
PI.  xxv,  8.  Here  the  blade  is  17  in.  long  while  the  length  of 
the  grip,  which  with  the  pommel  appears  to  be  of  bone,  is  not 
much  over  3  in.  The  end  of  the  strig  is  carried  through  the 
pommel  and  beaten  out  to  keep  this  from  slipping  off.  Some 
of  the  Nydam  hilts  resemble  the  Roman,  and  it  is  a  curious 
fact  that  an  enriched  wooden  hilt  found  in  Cumberland  and 
now  in  the  British  Museum,  PI.  xxv,  9,  is  of  very  much  the 
same  form  and  make.  The  garnet  inlays  and  the  poor  type 
of  filigree  work  suggest  a  late  date  in  VII,  but  it  is  quite 
possible  that  earlier  hilts  of  which  the  woodwork  has  now 
entirely  disappeared  were  finished  in  the  same  way.  Other 
Nydam  hilts  have  the  grip  of  a  pronounced  concave  outline  as 
shown  PI.  xxv,  6.  None  of  the  types  of  hilt  here  mentioned 
however  has  anything  substantial  in  the  way  of  a  guard,  and 
as  a  fact  the  development  of  an  effective  guard  dates  only  from 
the  Viking  period.  To  the  Viking  period  also  belongs  a  new 
conception  of  the  pommel.  Besides  its  function  of  securing 
the  hold  of  the  wielder  on  his  weapon,  it  is  now  made  very 
heavy  so  as  to  act  as  a  counterpoise  to  the  weight  of  the  blade 
and  give  the  whole  arm  a  suitable  balance.     With  the  Viking 


218  THE  SWORD 

sword  however,  a  remarkably  effective  and  well-considered 
implement,  we  are  not  at  present  concerned  though  No.  10 
on  PL  xxv  may  be  introduced  as  explaining  what  has  just  been 
said.  It  is  a  Danish  sword  at  York,  and  has  the  straight 
guard  and  heavy  pommel  with  the  median  hollow  along  the 
blade. 

The  peculiarity  of  the  early  sword  of  the  Teutonic 
migrations  is  that  it  has  not  only  no  guard  but  at  first  no 
pommel.  Some  device  to  prevent  the  handle  slipping  off  of 
course  existed,  but  the  earliest  or  at  any  rate  the  simplest 
swords  have  the  end  of  the  iron  tang  beaten  out  into  a  button 
form  that  only  takes  the  middle  part  of  the  wooden  grip  or  at 
any  rate  does  not  project  beyond  its  circumference.  The 
handle  of  a  short  cutlass  or  '  scramasax,'  see  below,  found  at 
Lussy  in  Switzerland  in  1908  and  now  in  the  Museum  at 
Fribourg,  has  retained  its  wooden  grip  though  this  may  have 
shrunk  a  little  through  time,  see  PI.  xxvi,  1.  The  Folkestone 
specimen  PI.  xxvur,  6,  evidently  had  a  hilt  of  the  same  kind, 
with  the  button  beaten  out  of  the  metal  of  the  tang.  When 
an  ornamental  head  is  desired  for  the  hilt  this  also  need  not 
project,  and  here  we  can  say  with  certainty  that  this  applies  to 
the  earliest  swords  in  point  of  time.  That  found  in  the  tomb 
of  Childeric,  who  died  in  481,  possesses  a  grip  straight  and  not 
concave  in  outline,  but  there  is  no  trustworthy  evidence  of  a 
pommel.1  The  swords  from  Pouan  in  the  Museum  at  Troyes 
are  adorned  with  admirable  garnet  inlays  of  a  somewhat 
simpler  kind,  and  are  obviously  of  the  same  style  and  date  as 
the  Childeric  sword  or  swords,  though  we  need  not  necessarily 
believe  the  former  to  have  been  carried  in  the  battle  against 
Attila  in  45 1 .     This  is  happily  preserved  complete  and  shows 

1  The  way  the  pieces  of  the  sword  or  swords  with  their  scabbard 
mounts  are  put  together  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale  at  Paris  is  not  to  be 
trusted.  M.  Pilloy  has  had  no  difficulty  in  showing  this,  see  his  Etudes, 
in,  5  f.  The  hilt  as  at  present  arranged  will  be  found  figured  later  on, 
PI.  H.  11  (p.  533). 


XXVI 

facing  p.  219 


SWORD  HILTS 


1  is  about  J  natural  size 
I  is  Continental 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  POMMEL 


219 


Fig.  9.— The  Pouan  Hilts. 


an  ornamental  head  without  any  projection  beyond  the  gold- 
plated  wooden  grip.1  A  sketch  of  the  two  hilts  from  the 
Pouan  find  is  given  in  Fig.  9, 
reduced  to  one  half  linear. 

This  will  justify  us  in  regard- 
ing the  hilt  of  the  spatha  as 
starting  without  any  effective 
pommel,  and  the  development 
of  this  to  the  somewhat  elaborate 
forms  which  we  find  represented 
in  the  cemeteries  is  a  matter 
of  time.     On  this  showing  the 

simpler  the  arrangement  the  earlier  the  sword,  and  this  is  a 
good  working  hypothesis  that  we  can  test  as  we  go  on.  Many 
tangs  of  swords  from  Anglo-Saxon  cemeteries  end  like  the 
Croydon  example  PI.  xxv,  3,  with  a  slight  beating  out  of  the 
extremity.  Between  this  and  the  beginning  of  the  blade  there 
is  a  space  of  about  \\  in.  and  there  would  be  just  room  in  this 
length  for  some  thickening  of  the  wooden  grip  to  serve  as  a 
pommel,  for  the  space  allowed  for  the  hand  in  these  early 
swords  is  very  small,  on  an  average  about  3^-  in.  It  is  a 
step  in  advance  when  a  separate  piece  is  used  as  a  sort  of  cap 
or  '  washer,'  the  end  of  the  tang  perforating  it,  and  this  cap 
may  very  well  have  taken  a  form  like  that  on  the  sword 
from  Shepperton,  Middlesex,  in  the  Museum  at  Guildford, 
PI.  xxvi,  2,  where  the  end  of  the  tang  passes  up  through  a 
hole  in  the  iron  cap  and  is  fixed  by  being  beaten  out.  As  the 
tang  is  about  4^  in.  long  there  is  room  here  too  for  a  wooden 
knob  below  the  cap.  This  little  iron  cap  is  really  the  begin- 
ning of  the  pommel.  It  soon  assumes  a  more  definite  shape, 
is  fashioned  in  bronze,  and  becomes  what  is  known  as  the 
'  cocked  hat '  pommel,  a  simple  form  of  which  is  seen  at  the 
bottom  of  PI.  xxvi,  Nos.   8,  9.     It  comes  from  Bowcombe 

1  Peigne-Delacourt,  Reckerctes  sur  le  Lieu  de  la  Batailk  a" Attila  en  451, 
Paris,  i860,  pi.  11,  from  which  the  sketch  is  taken. 


220  THE  SWORD 

Down,  Isle  of  Wight,  and  is  in  Carisbrooke  Castle  Museum. 
No.  8  is  a  view  from  above  and  shows  the  pyramidal  form 
with  the  hole  at  the  apex  to  let  through  the  end  of  the  tang, 
and  No.  9  is  a  view  up  into  it  from  beneath.  A  similar  piece, 
but  with  the  tang  actually  in  it,  from  Alfriston,  Sussex,  in  the 
Lewes  Museum,  is  shown  in  two  views  in  Nos.  6,  7.  The 
end  of  the  tang  is  seen  appearing  through  the  hole  in  the  top 
in  No.  7,  and  the  internal  construction  in  No.  6.  The  hollow 
of  the  pommel  would  probably  be  filled  up  by  the  wood  of  the 
grip  which  would  certainly  spread  out  laterally  as  far  as  the 
bronze  in  a  sort  of  cushion  to  protect  the  hand.  In  PI.  xxvi,  4, 
a  small  bronze  '  cocked  hat '  pommel  from  near  Droxford, 
Hants,  in  the  Winchester  Museum,  there  is  an  advance  in 
that  the  ends  of  the  pommel  are  pierced,  and  rivets  have  been 
passed  through  the  holes  to  attach  it  to  something  beneath. 

This  introduces  us  to  more  elaborate  arrangements  which 
will  be  seen  illustrated  in  an  advanced  example  in  bronze  from 
the  Bifrons  cemetery  in  the  Museum  of  the  Kent  Archaeo- 
logical Society  at  Maidstone,  PL  xxvi,  3,  and  a  more  complete 
one  of  silver  gilt  found  at  Gilton,  Kent,  in  the  Faussett 
collection  at  Liverpool,  PI.  xxvi,  5,  where  the  lower  part  of 
the  hilt  is  also  shown.  The  '  cocked  hat '  part  of  the  pommel 
has  lost  here  its  original  constructive  purpose  as  a  '  washer ' 
through  which  the  end  of  the  tang  is  passed  to  be  there 
4  clinched,'  and  is  becoming  a  mere  ornamental  finish,  for  in 
these  enriched  specimens,  which  are  sometimes  of  gilded 
bronze  set  with  garnets,  the  iron  tang  does  not  come  through 
at  the  top.  This  of  course  entirely  alters  the  construction, 
and  some  other  contrivance  has  to  be  adopted  to  prevent  the 
whole  pommel  arrangement  slipping  ofF  from  the  end  of  the 
tang.  It  is  not  easy  to  see  how  this  was  done.  In  these  more 
elaborate  hilts  a  bronze  plate  comes  under  the  cocked  hat 
pommel  to  which  this  is  riveted.  To  pass  the  end  of  the 
tang  through  this  plate  and  beat  it  out  is  a  very  simple  and 
practical   arrangement   which  would    certainly   occur   to   the 


XXVII 

facing  p.  221 


SWORD  HILTS 


Will 


I,  2,  are  Continental 


ADJUNCTS  TO  THE  HILT  221 

craftsman,  and  the  cocked  hat  would  be  finally  riveted  down 
over  the  top  for  a  finish. 

Elaboration  in  this  part  of  the  hilt  is  however  carried  still 
further.  A  little  distance,  say  §  in.,  below  this  first  plate  there 
comes  another  of  equal  size,  and  the  two  are  riveted  together 
through  a  disc  of  hard  wood  that  is  introduced  between. 
PI.  xxvi,  3,  shows  this  still  in  situ.  Furthermore,  in  3  and  5 
on  PI.  xxvi  and  4  on  PI.  xxvn,  one  of  the  rivets,  shown  best 
in  the  last-mentioned  example,  terminates  above  the  upper 
surface  of  the  end  of  the  cocked  hat  pommel  in  a  ring,  and  in 
this  fixed  ring  a  second  ring  is  made  loosely  to  play.  The 
purpose  of  this  seems  to  be  to  afford  means  for  the  attachment 
of  a  cord  to  the  hilt  that  could  be  tied  round  the  wrist,  so  that 
the  weapon  might  be  temporarily  dropped  from  the  grasp  and 
easily  recovered  again.  For  the  sake  of  securing  a  solid 
attachment  for  this  fixed  ring  the  rivet  which  is  in  one  piece 
with  it  is  carried  down  below  the  lower  plate  and  there 
clinched. 

This  ring  arrangement  is  to  all  appearance  an  Anglo-Saxon 
invention,  and  when  anything  like  it  is  found  on  the  Continent 
it  is  either  an  importation  from  our  island  as  M.  Pilloy 
believes,1  or  more  probably  is  an  imitation  of  our  forms.  The 
proof  is  as  follows.  In  Sweden  sword  hilts  of  this  general 
pattern  have  long  been  known,  and  more  recently  at  Kastel  by 
Mainz  in  southern  Germany,2  and  at  Concevreux  near  Laon  in 
France,3  specimens  have  been  found  that  in  both  cases  are 
unique  in  the  countries  named.  In  all  these  continental 
examples  however  the  ring  and  its  attachment  do  not  act,  but 
occur  only  as  survivals  in  the  form  of  solid  lumps  neither 
useful  nor  particularly  ornamental.  PI.  xxvn,  1,  shows  a 
group  in  the  Museum  at  Stockholm  where  the  cocked  hat 
pommels  are  showily  adorned  with  garnet  inlays  in  gold,  but 

1  ttudes,  in,  217  f. 

2  Lindenschmit,  Altertumer  unserer  beidniscben  Vorzeit,  v,  p.  165,  pi.  30. 

3  Pilloy,  I.e. 


222  THE  SWORD 

are  quite  hollow  and  obviously  mere  decorative  finishes  to  the 
hilt.  To  the  left  is  a  golden  ornament  that  originated  in 
the  ring  and  attachment  of  a  hilt  such  as  PI.  xxvi,  3  and  5, 
but  is  a  mere  dummy  and  has  no  longer  any  significance. 
PI.  xxvn,  2,  shows  the  use  of  the  'cocked  hat '  as  a  decora- 
tive finish  on  a  well-preserved  sword  handle  of  about  VII  in 
the  Museum  of  Copenhagen. 

The  ring  arrangement  is  by  no  means  common,  and  does 
not  occur  for  example  in  the  elaborate  sword  hilt  found  at 
Combe,  Kent,  and  now  at  Saffron  Walden,1  PI.  xxvu,  3.  This 
however  shows  a  further  development  in  the  hilt  portion  of  the 
sword  of  importance  for  the  future.  The  two  plates  and  inter- 
mediate layer  are  reproduced  in  the  same  form  at  the  bottom 
as  at  the  top  of  the  hilt,  and  the  lower  plates  soon  extend 
laterally  to  a  greater  width  than  the  upper  and  so  prepare  the 
way  for  the  effective  guard  of  the  Viking  sword.  In  the 
Combe  example  the  two  plates  nearest  the  centre  at  each  end 
of  the  hilt  have  interlacing  ornament  which  is  not  an  early 
feature.  This  hilt  from  Combe  is  clearly  of  an  advanced  type 
both  in  form  and  enrichment,  and  may  be  held  to  date  the 
burial  in  which  it  occurred  late  in  VII  or  even  in  VIII.  It  is 
at  any  rate  not  a  V  form  and  the  bronze  vessel  containing 
burnt  human  bones  that  was  found  with  it  cannot  represent  an 
early  Jutish  cremation  burial,  that  is  to  say  it  cannot  be  quoted 
as  evidence  of  Kentish  cremation  in  the  pagan  period. 

We  thus  obtain  a  fairly  complete  morphological  series,"  and 
if  we  assume  the  usual  progress  from  the  simpler  to  the  more 
complex  it  becomes  of  chronological  value.  An  obiter  dictum  of 
Dr.  Bernhard  Salin  must  be  noticed  here.2  After  dealing  with 
the  more  ornate  cocked  hat  pommels  he  refers  to  some  much 
smaller  and  quite  simple  ones  as  more  probably  after-simplifica- 
tions of  the  elaborate  ones  than  stages  in  their  evolution.  But 
here  in  our  English  series  we  have  first  iron  caps,  PI.  xxvi,  2  ; 

1  Figured  in  colours  in  Akerman's  Tagan  Saxondom,  pi.  xxiv. 

2  Altgermanische  Tierornamentik>  p.  10 1. 


THE  BRIGHTHAMPTON  SWORD  223 

then  bronze  ones  cast  pretty  solid  and  plain  and  employed 
purely  as  things  of  use  ;  and  later  on  ornamental  objects  made 
in  the  same  similitude  but  used  only  for  show  and  in  connec- 
tion with  elaborate  arrangements  of  which  there  is  no  hint  in 
the  simpler  specimens.  It  is  quite  clear  that  we  have  here  a 
progress  in  time  from  the  simpler  to  the  more  complicated  and 
not  the  reverse.  The  most  advanced  specimens  we  have  been 
considering  both  in  our  own  country  and  in  Scandinavia  must 
be  of  VII,  the  simplest  ones,  like  the  specimen  from  the 
Thames-side  grave  at  Shepperton  PI.  xxvi,  2,  and  the  Lewes 
and  Bowcombe  Down  bronze  pommels,  might  belong  to  the 
end  of  V  or  beginning  of  VI.  A  VI  date  would  suit  an  im- 
portant example  of  intermediate  form,  the  famous  sword  from 
Brighthampton,  Oxon,  in  the  Ashmolean  Museum,  PL  xxvn, 
5  to  8.  It  has  always  passed  for  very  early  on  the  ground  of  its 
ornamentation,  but  there  was  found  with  it,  apparently  as  part 
of  the  fittings  of  the  scabbard,1  a  small  cross  of  silver  of 
distinctively  Christian  form.  We  have  already  seen  the  cross 
used  with  a  prophylactic  purpose  on  implements  of  war  (p.  196), 
and  it  is  quite  possible  that  this  sword  may  have  been  borne  by 
a  pagan  Saxon  chief  who  had  obtained  it  in  the  Rhineland  or 
Gaul  where  there  were  Christianized  workmen  (p.  1 16).  This 
suggestion  is  made  more  plausible  by  the  technique  employed 
in  some  of  the  ornament  which  is  practically  unknown  else- 
where in  this  country.  On  the  other  hand  the  sword  may  be 
of  pagan  Saxon  fabrication  and  the  cross  may  have  been  added 
from  motives  of  superstition  on  account  of  its  prophylactic 
qualities  which  had  been  reported  from  the  Continent.  This 
hypothesis  is  favoured  by  the  fact  that  in  its  form  the  sword 
hilt  falls  into  line  with  other  Anglo-Saxon  examples  in  our 
morphological  series.  This  sword  has  a  cocked  hat  pommel, 
PL  xxvii,  6,  hollow,  with  a  hole  in  the  top  like  the  pommel 

1  J.  Y.  Akerman  in  Archaeologia,  xxxvm,  87.  Akerman  had  no  doubt 
that  it  belonged  to  the  sword.  His  drawing  of  it  is  reproduced  in  the  corner 
of  7,  on  PI.  xxvii. 


224  THE  SWORD 

from  Bowcombe  Down  PL  xxvi,  8,  9,  and  with  a  rivet  that  is 
undoubtedly  original  passing  through  one  of  the  holes  at  the 
ends  of  the  base  of  it.  It  is  very  noteworthy  however  that  the 
rivet  has  not  been  clinched  as  it  would  have  been  had  it  passed 
through  a  metal  plate  and  been  fixed  in  position  by  being 
beaten  out  at  the  end.  On  the  contrary  the  point  is  preserved, 
and  it  is  such  a  point  as  might  be  used  to  drive  into  wood. 
Hence  we  should  probably  be  right  in  supposing  that  in  the 
Brighthampton  hilt  the  wooden  grip  ended  above  in  a  rounded 
cushion  of  the  same  material  that  was  inserted  into  the  hollow 
of  the  bronze  cap  and  kept  firm  and  prevented  from  twisting 
by  the  two  nails.  The  iron  strig  no  doubt  originally  passed 
up  through  the  hole  in  the  top  of  the  bronze  cap  and  was  there 
clinched.  It  is  true  that  there  are  no  marks  of  it  in  the 
aperture  nor  traces  of  the  rust  which  one  would  expect  to  find 
where  it  had  once  been,  but  such  a  conjecture  seems  forced 
upon  one  by  the  existence  of  the  hole  and  the  fact  that  in  other 
examples  such  as  PI.  xxvi,  6,  7,  the  strig  is  actually  seen  in  the 
position  indicated,  as  well  as  by  the  apparent  absence  of  any 
plate  where  the  strig  could  have  been  fixed  by  clinching.  How 
the  remainder  of  the  hilt  was  treated  we  cannot  exactly  tell,  but 
there  is  no  indication  of  plates  or  anything  to  form  a  guard 
at  the  lower  part  of  the  grip.  This  is  shown  No.  7  on 
PL  xxvii,  and  we  have  to  note  that  the  ornamental  transverse 
plate  which  is  here  seen  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  sword  itself 
but  only  with  the  scabbard,  round  the  mouth  of  which  it  forms 
a  band.  No.  8  on  PL  xxvii  shows  the  bottom  of  the  scabbard 
which  is  bound  with  silver  forming  what  is  technically  known 
as  the  *  chape.'  On  the  silver  will  be  seen  representations  of 
animals  apparently  plated  in  gold  within  incised  outlines, 
though  this  cannot  be  very  clearly  distinguished.  The  animal 
forms  are  well  made  out  and  with  the  S-shaped  scrolls  on  the 
mouthpiece  suggest  a  very  early  date,  even  in  V,  but  the 
pommel,  not  to  speak  of  the  cross,  can  hardly  be  so  early. 
Finally,  PL  xxvii,  5,  shows  a  large  bead  that  was  found  with 


SCRAMASAX,  KNIFE,  AND  DAGGER  225 

the  hilt,  and  is  supposed  to  have  served  as  a  sort  of  button  to 
fasten  the  thong  when  looped  round  the  wrist  in  order  to 
prevent  the  loss  of  the  weapon  if  the  fingers  for  any  reason 
relaxed  their  grip  upon  the  hilt.  To  other  beads  or  studs, 
some  in  the  form  of  dainty  jewels,  that  appear  in  the  cemeteries 
a  similar  function  has  been  assigned. 


THE  SCRAMASAX,  KNIFE,  AND  DAGGER 

It  is  now  known  that  in  the  grave  of  Childeric  there  was 
contained  not  only  the  royal  spatha  but  likewise  a  second 
and  shorter  sword  that  was  also  supplied  with  garnet  inlaid 
mountings  in  the  finest  style  of  the  craft.  The  shape  of  the 
mountings  that  enclosed  the  scabbard  shows  that  this  sword 
was  a  single-edged  weapon  thick  at  the  back  and  about 
i|-  inches  in  width.  In  the  Pouan  find  at  Troyes  besides  the 
large  double-edged  spatha  there  was  also  a  similar  single-edged 
blade  22  in.  in  length  by  a  width  of  1^  in.1  These  are  early 
specimens  of  an  arm  that  at  a  considerably  later  date  became 
the  most  common  and  indeed  almost  the  only  weapon  carried 
by  the  Franks  or  at  any  rate  placed  in  their  tombs.  It  was  a 
specially  Germanic  product  quite  unlike  anything  Roman,  and 
when  at  its  best  and  largest  it  was  a  very  heavy  single-edged 
straight-bladed  cutlass,  broad,  and  thick  at  the  back  which 
curved  forward  at  the  top  to  meet  the  cutting  edge  at  a  point. 
Along  the  blade  near  the  back  there  almost  always  ran  two  or 
three  longitudinal  grooves  that  are  sometimes  filled  in  with 
some  differently  coloured  metal,  and  were  perhaps  always 
intended  to  be  so  treated.  The  old  notion,  founded  on  a 
passage  in  Gregory  of  Tours,  that  they  were  intended  to  hold 
poison  is  now  quite  given  up.  The  name  *  scramasax '  is 
commonly  applied  to  the  arm  on  the  strength  of  this  passage 
in  the  Frankish  historian,2  part  of  which  runs  ' .   .   .  pueri  cum 

1  Peign^-Delacourt,  I.e.,  p.  4  and  pi.  11. 

2  Historia  Francorum,  iv,  52. 
Ill  P 


226  THE  SCRAMASAX,  ETC. 

cultris  validis,  quos  vulgo  scramasaxos  vocant.'  The  fact  that 
the  term  *  culter,'  '  knife,'  is  thus  used  as  equivalent  to  scra- 
masax  may  give  a  key  to  its  history.  It  began  as  a  knife  and 
later  on  was  enlarged  into  a  sword.  The  knife  is  found  early 
and  is  the  most  common  of  all  implements  in  Germanic  graves 
both  of  men  and  women,  being  found  also  with  children,  and 
the  knife  is  nearly  always  in  form  a  small  scramasax.  The 
one  indeed  runs  into  the  other  through  a  series  of  intermediate 
sizes  about  some  of  which  it  is  difficult  to  say  whether  they 
are  knives  or  cutlasses.  In  his  account  of  the  exploration  of 
the  cemetery  at  Herpes  in  western  France  M.  Delamain l  says 
that  the  abundant  knives  were  of  all  sizes,  some  were  utensils, 
others  poniard-like,  while  a  third  class  were  veritable  scrama- 
saxes.  The  connection  of  knife  and  scramasax  is  also  indicated 
by  terminology.  The  meaning  of  the  first  part  of  the  compound 
word  is  uncertain,  but  the  last  part  is  the  familiar  Anglo-Saxon 
4  seax,'  supposed  to  be  associated  in  some  way  with  the  ethnic 
name  '  Saxon.'  This  word  occurs  in  Beowulf  in  connections 
which  have  suggested  to  Professor  Earle  the  translation 
1  knife  '  and  '  dirk,'  to  Benjamin  Thorpe  '  knife  '  and  *  poniard.' 
It  was  worn  by  her  side  by  Grendel's  mother,  line  1 545,  and 
by  Beowulf  himself  attached  to  his  coat  of  mail,  line  2703,  but 
it  was  at  the  same  time  an  effective  weapon  of  war,  strong  and 
deadly  though  of  manageable  size.  This  might  be  regarded 
as  a  knife-scramasax,  and  the  mediaeval  dirk  or  dagger  em- 
ployed at  meals  as  well  as  in  fight  would  give  a  good  idea  of 
its  use  though  not  of  its  form,  for  the  dagger  is  essentially  a 
two-edged  pointed  weapon  meant  for  the  thrust.  The  matter 
has  been  somewhat  complicated  by  the  endeavour  of  some 
writers  to  give  a  special  name  to  a  class  of  weapons  very 
like  the  scramasax  but  a  little  more  slender.  This  is  called 
'  Langsax  '  by  the  Germans,  and  '  coutelas  '  by  M.  Pilloy,  who 
insists  that  Childeric's  weapon  cannot  be  called  a  scramasax 

1   Soci£te  Archeologique  et  Historiquc  de  la  Charente,  Bulletin,  1890-91, 
p.  186. 


XXVIII 

facing  p.  227 


SCRAMAS^ 


2,  6,  7,  19,  20,  are  about  J  natural  size 


,  KNIVES.  ETC. 

^^^^^^^^^* 

^^^ 

IP^ar*- 

■^^^^^^■331 

aL    _          <      .^        ^JLT3^L^L 

B^r    4Br   ^ 

XXVIII 

0 

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I13I 

IB 

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Jl" 

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jm3p^^pi 

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^^^^^^*^^^^^^^^^£       ^^^^^"^ 

rest  about  ^  natural  size  ;  20  is  31  in.  long 


THE  KNIFE  227 

because  this  particular  arm  '  only  makes  its  appearance  towards 
the  end  of  the  6th  century.'  *  We  have  therefore  to  distin- 
guish four  different  species  of  the  same  genus. 

1.  The  knife  pure  and  simple  which  was  perhaps  called 
1  seax '  by  our  forefathers  and  of  which  innumerable  examples 
have  come  to  light  in  graves  apparently  of  all  periods.  The 
form  of  this  is  pretty  constant.  Its  special  characteristic  is  its 
straightness,  in  which  it  differs  from  the  curved  knives  of  the 
Bronze  Age  and  of  Romano-British  times,  specimens  of  which 
are  shown  PI.  xxvin,  5  and  9.  A  tang  is  always  present,  and 
the  length  of  blade  and  tang  together  ranges  from  some  3  in. 
upwards,  while  the  blade  varies  considerably  in  width  in  rela- 
tion to  the  length.  The  handle  was  no  doubt  generally  of 
wood  2  but  some  plates  of  bone  have  been  found,  as  at  Glen 
Parva,  Leicestershire,  which  may  have  formed  knife  hilts. 
PI.  xxvin  gives  a  number  of  these  knives  from  different 
cemeteries,  and  the  lady  of  PL  xn  (p.  151)  has  a  broad-bladed 
one  by  her  side.  It  should  be  noted  that  in  Kent  several 
instances  have  been  found  in  which  a  knife  was  contained  in  a 
small  sheath  attached  to  the  scabbard  of  a  sword.  Thus  at 
Sarre  a  scramasax  12  in.  long  was  carried  in  the  same  sheath 
with  a  knife,  and  in  two  graves  at  Bifrons  the  same  thing  was 
observed.  PL  xxvin,  11  to  18  gives  a  selection  of  these  knives 
from  different  localities.  They  vary  in  length  from  3^-  in.  to 
6  in.  and  as  reproduced  on  the  plate  are  approximately  to 
\  scale.  Nos.  16,  18  are  from  the  cemetery  at  Bifrons  and 
are  about  5  in.  long  ;  14  and  17  are  from  Saffron  Walden  ; 
13  and  15  from  Saxby,  Leicestershire,  now  at  Derby;  12  a 
couple  from  Uncleby,  Yorks  ;  8  and  1 1  from  a  barrow  near 
Welton,  Staffordshire.     The  longest,  No.  13,  measures  6  in. 

1  Etudes,  in,  63. 

2  Ornamented  knife  hilts  on  which  in  open  work  are  figures  of  a  dog 
pursuing  a  hare  have  more  than  once  been  found  in  our  own  country  and 
abroad.  They  are  in  their  origin  Roman  but  seem  to  have  been  copied  by 
the  barbaric  craftsman,  see  examples  figured  later  on,  PI.  clv  (p.  563).  These 
are  in  bronre,  but  there  is  an  example  in  bone  in  the  Museum  at  Pe'ronne. 


228  THE  SCRAMASAX,  ETC. 

2.  The  knife  which  suggests  service  as  a  weapon.  Some 
good  examples  are  in  the  British  Museum.  The  one  shown 
PI.  xxvin,  10  is  13  in.  long,  and  has  the  broad  scramasax 
blade  with  the  characteristic  grooves  near  the  back  that  in  this 
case  are  filled  in  with  bronze,  as  is  another  in  the  Museum  at 
Mainz.  No.  10  was  found  in  the  City  of  London  together 
with  coins  of  JEthelred  11,  979-1016  a.d.  The  late  date  of 
the  object  is  significant  and  agrees  with  the  chronology  of  the 
fully  developed  weapon  on  the  Continent.  Another  important 
point  about  the  piece  is  its  outline.  It  will  be  noticed  that  the 
back  slopes  off  towards  the  point  in  a  straight  line,  and  this 
form  is  very  common  in  our  own  country  though  exceedingly 
rare  abroad,  where  a  curved  line  is  almost  universal.  This 
is  one  of  many  minor  details  in  which  the  independence  of 
the  Saxon  craftsman  is  proclaimed.  The  Kentish  example  at 
Maidstone,  PL  xxvm,  4,  may  be  regarded  as  a  small  scra- 
masax for  though  it  is  only  about  9  in.  long  the  form  and 
proportions  are  those  of  the  latter  and  the  blade  is  1^  in. 
wide,  while  there  are  traces  of  the  wooden  sheath.  The 
sheath  of  continental  scramasaxes  is  very  often  more  or  less 
well  preserved  and  is  adorned  along  the  back  with  a  series  of 
large  studs. 

3,  4.  We  have  thirdly  the  complete  scramasax,  and  in  the 
fourth  place  the  so-called  '  Langsax,'  or  slender  version  of  the 
scramasax,  which  is  however  so  closely  connected  with  it  that 
the  two  must  be  taken  together. 

The  scramasax  in  its  fully  developed  form  as  we  find  it  in 
Frankish,  Burgundian,  and  Alamannic  graves  is  of  very  rare 
occurrence  in  England,  though  perhaps  this  may  be  due  in  part 
to  the  earlier  cessation  among  ourselves  of  the  practice  of  tomb 
furniture.  In  the  form  referred  to  it  may  attain  the  length  of 
2  ft.  6  in.  by  a  breadth  of  blade  of  i\  in.  and  a  thickness  at 
the  back  of  nearly  J  in.  A  weapon  of  the  kind  stoutly 
wielded  would  deliver  a  blow  as  weighty  as  that  of  an  axe, 
with  the  advantage  that  it  was  convenient  for  parry  and  could 


THE  SCRAMASAX  229 

be  used  for  a  thrust,  though  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  has  been 
noticed  that  the  uncivilized  swordsman  seldom  avails  himself 
of  the  point.  Scramasaxes  of  these  dimensions,  and  others 
also  where  the  size  is  much  less,  have  often  hilts  of  such  a 
length  that  they  must  have  been  wielded  with  both  hands. 
At  a  later  date  in  the  middle  ages,  at  the  famous  battle  of 
Bouvines  in  12 14  a.d.,  a  weapon  of  the  kind  was  tremen- 
dously effective  in  the  hands  of  the  Emperor  Otho,  who  we 
are  told 1  brandished  with  both  hands  a  sword  with  a  single 
edge  like  a  knife,  and  was  striking  down  man  and  horse  with 
a  single  blow.  In  our  own  country  scramasaxes  when  they 
occur  are  as  a  rule  comparatively  small.  One  very  fine  scra- 
masax  however  of  the  continental  size  and  shape  was  found  at 
Kidlington,  Oxfordshire,  in  1892  with  human  remains,  and  is 
now  in  the  Museum  at  Bristol.  Its  length  is  no  less  than 
31  in.,  and  the  tang  which,  is  6^  in.  long  may  be  incomplete. 
The  width  where  it  is  broadest  is  2^  in.,  and  the  thickness  at 
the  back  was  at  least  -^  in.  if  not  ^  in.,  and  the  weight  of  it  is 
now  just  three  pounds.  This,  which  is  shown  PI.  xxvni,  20, 
would  be  an  exceptionally  fine  piece  anywhere.  Lindenschmit 
in  his  Handbuch  gives  the  length  of  the  full-sized  scramasax  at 
from  44  to  76  cm.,  equivalent  roughly  to  17^  in.  to  30  in.  At 
Reichenhall  in  Bavaria,  where  the  arm  was  well  represented,  the 
dimensions  varied  between  18  in.  and  30^-  in.,  and  M.  Baudot 
reported  of  the  Burgundian  cemetery  at  Charnay  that  he  found 
scramasaxes  up  to  70  cm.  (28  in.)  in  length.  The  Bristol  scra- 
masax is  accordingly  a  possession  of  which  we  may  be  proud. 
Some  long  but  very  slender  scramasaxes  found  in  the  Thames 
are  in  the  national  collection.  These  will  be  noticed  sub- 
sequently in  connection  with  the  Danish  period.  The  weapons 
have  come  to  light  sporadically  in  the  south  as  at  Ozengell, 
Gilton,  Sarre,  Sibertswold  (20  in.  long),  Kent ;  Chessell  Down, 
Isle  of  Wight,  Hants  ;  Long  Wittenham  and  East  ShefTord, 
Berks  ;  in  East  Anglia  at  Offton,  Hoxne,  and  Little  Bealings, 
1  Roger  of  Wendover,  ad  ann.  1214,  Rolls  Series,  No.  84/1. 


230  THE  SCRAMASAX,  ETC. 

Suffolk x ;  in  London 2 ;  in  Wilts,  from  Purton,  at  Devizes, 
PI.  xxvni,  19  ;  etc.,  etc.,  but  they  are  especially  in  evidence 
in  Yorkshire  where  several  have  been  found,  as  in  barrows 
at  Driffield,3  and  Uncleby,  in  York  Museum,  PI.  xxvni,  7. 
The  barrow  burials  in  Yorkshire  are  of  a  late  date  though  still 
within  the  period  with  which  we  are  dealing.  The  London 
finds  on  the  other  hand  belong  for  the  most  part  to  the  Viking 
or  Danish  period  subsequent  to  the  practical  refoundation  of 
the  City  by  Alfred  the  Great.  The  most  important  London 
scramasax  is  a  long  and  slender  one  that  was  found  in  the 
Thames  and  bears  incised  upon  it  a  document  of  the  highest 
interest  in  the  form  of  a  runic  alphabet.  This  piece  with  its 
inscription  will  be  dealt  with  subsequently. 

The  tangs  of  these  English  examples  are  for  the  most  part 
comparatively  short,  but  a  notable  example  of  the  two-handed 
hilt  was  found  near  Snodland  in  Kent  and  is  now  in  the 
Museum  at  Rochester,  PI.  xxvni,  2.  The  total  length  here 
is  nearly  20  in.,  of  which  8  in.  go  to  the  handle.  It  is  curious 
however  that  the  blade  is  of  no  great  weight  being  only  about 
1  in.  broad,  and  the  arm  could  easily  have  been  wielded  with 
one  hand.  It  may  be  regarded  as  a  fancy  piece  forged  by  a 
Saxon  smith  in  imitation  of  the  effective  two-handed  swords 
known  on  the  Continent.  In  its  slenderness  it  may  illustrate  the 
variety  already  referred  to  under  the  German  name  '  Langsax.' 
This  is  represented  by  a  somewhat  exceptional  find  in  the 
cemetery  above  Folkestone,  PI.  xxvni,  6.  It  is  15  in.  long 
with  a  handle  4^-  in.  in  length  and  a  well-preserved  simple 
pommel  in  the  same  piece  with  the  tang.  It  is  single-edged 
and  the  blade  is  about  1^  in.  broad.  A  still  more  abnormal 
piece  is  shown  PI.  xxvni,  1.  It  is  10J  in.  long,  and  was  found 
at  Saffron  Walden,  Essex,  where  it  is  preserved.  The  scimitar- 
like shape  is  very  remarkable,  and  as  the  cemetery  contained 

1  Victoria  History,  York,  n,  92. 

2  Catalogue  of  Guildhall  Museum,  1908,  p.  123,  and  Collectanea  Antiqua, 
11,  243.  3  Akerman,  Pag.  Sax.,  pi.  ix. 


AXE  HEADS,  ANGLO-SAXON  AND  CONTINENTAL 


The  scale  applies  approximately  to  all  but  3,  the  length  of  which  is  17  in. 
/,  2,  g,  11,  are  Continental 


THE  AXE  231 

relics  earlier  than  the  Anglo-Saxon  times  it  may  not  be 
Germanic,  but  it  was  included  by  the  explorers  in  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  series.  Another  long-handled  example  comes  from 
Purton,  Wilts,  and  is  shown  PI.  xxviii,  19. 

A  possibly  unique  piece  was  found  at  Cookham  by  the 
Thames  and  is  preserved  at  Reading,  PI.  xxviii,  3.  It  is 
a  genuine  two-edged  dagger  with  central  rib  and  a  tang  for 
a  [hilt.  The  blade  is  9  in.  long,  and  as  it  was  found  with 
other  undoubtedly  Anglo-Saxon  arms  it  belongs  to  our  period 
though  it  would  be  hard  to  find  its  fellow.  All  other  so-called 
£  daggers '  in  our  collections  appear  to  be  single-edged  weapons 
of  the  scramasax  type. 

THE  AXE 

In  the  use  of  the  scramasax  we  seem  to  obtain  a  differentia 
between  the  Frankish  and  the  Saxon  warrior  and  the  same  is 
true  of  the  axe.  A  particular  kind  of  axe  suitable  for  employ- 
ment as  a  missile  was  as  characteristic  of  the  Frank  at  the  early 
period  of  his  invasion  of  Gaul  as  the  scramasax  became  during 
his  later  history,  and  specimens  of  the  former  arm  occur 
sporadically  like  examples  of  the  latter  in  our  island  cemeteries. 
The  Frankish  axe  was  known  by  the  name  '  Francisca '  and 
a  specimen  occurred  in  the  tomb  of  Childeric,  PL  xxix,  n.1 
This  is  7^  in.  long  from  butt  to  edge  and  the  cutting  edge 
itself  is  4  in.  broad.  The  peculiarity  of  the  head  of  the 
francisca  is  that  when  hafted  the  axial  line  along  the  middle 
of  the  blade  from  butt  to  edge  is  not  at  right  angles  to  the 
haft,  but  runs  down  towards  it  at  an  angle,  so  that  the  head 
is  tilted  upwards.  This  setting  of  the  head  seems  designed 
to  facilitate  the  flight  of  the  object  when  used  as  a  missile, 
and  it  is  evident  that  the  Frankish  weapon  smith  exercised 
considerable  taste  in  working  out  the  free  and  swinging  curves 
he  gave  to  the  outline.     PL  xxix,  2,  in  the  Museum  at  Rouen, 

1  The  reproductions  on  this  plate  are  approximately  to  scale. 


232  THE  AXE 

is  a  good  example  and  No.  i  shows  one  in  the  same  collection 
with  the  wooden  haft  still  partly  preserved.  No.  2  has  a 
pronounced  upward  tilt. 

Axe  heads  of  this  type  occur  as  has  been  said  in  this 
country,  and  are  pretty  evenly  distributed  through  our  different 
provinces  though  they  are  most  common  in  Kent.  This 
would  seem  to  imply  that  they  were  imported,  but  on  the 
other  hand  our  examples  present  simpler  forms  than  we 
find  abroad  and  are  quite  possibly  reproductions  by  our  native 
smiths  of  the  known  continental  type.  PI.  xxix,  4,  5,  6,  7, 
are  English  examples,  from  Saltburn-on-Sea,  Yorks ;  Col- 
chester, Essex  ;  Croydon,  Surrey  ;  and  Kent,  in  Maidstone 
Museum,  respectively.  No.  8  is  an  example  of  a  type  that 
occurs  abroad  and  is  well  represented  in  the  Museum  at 
St.  Germain ;  it  is  on  a  minute  scale,  only  3  in.  long,  and 
is  evidently  a  toy  axe  suitable  for  a  boy.  It  is  in  the  Museum 
at  Aylesbury  and  is  of  local  provenance.  There  is  a  similar 
toy  axe  head  at  Colchester.  Nos.  3,  and  12,  are  almost  unica. 
The  first  is  an  axe  with  a  long  iron  handle,  17  in.  in  length 
over  all,  and  a  split  socket  after  the  Anglo-Saxon  fashion. 
It  was  found  with  two  iron  spear  heads  in  a  Roman  villa  at 
Alresford,  and  was  presented  by  Dr.  Laver  to  the  Museum 
at  Colchester.  The  Abbe  Cochet  mentions  two  examples  of 
such  iron  handles  attached  to  Frankish  axes.1 

The  other,  No.  12,  is  a  product  of  the  cemetery  at  Bifrons, 
and  is  an  iron  axe  head  meant  to  be  hafted  after  the  fashion 
of  a  prehistoric  socketed  axe  of  the  Bronze  Age  ;  that  is  to 
say  the  handle  is  inserted  in  a  socket  that  runs  in  the  direction 
of  the  axis  of  the  head.  There  is  no  doubt  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  origin  of  this  curious  piece,  and  a  parallel  to  it  is  among 
the  Layard  finds  at  Ipswich.  Nos.  9  and  10  introduce  us  to 
an  altogether  different  shape  of  axe  head  and  one  that  used 
to  be  called  specially  Anglo-Saxon,  but,  as  No.  9  from  the 
Museum  at  Rouen  shows,  it  is  also  a  continental  form,  and 

1  Le  Tombeau  de  Cbilderic,  p.  1 27. 


XXX 

facing  p.  233 


AXE  HEADS,  AND  PIN  HEADS  IN  AXE  FORM 


I,  4, 5,  are  Continental 


EXCEPTIONAL  AXE  HEADS  233 

there  are  numerous  examples  at  St.  Germain,  and  in  other 
Frankish  collections.  Here  the  cutting  edge  is  very  long, 
measuring  in  the  specimen  No.  10,  from  Aldworth,  Berks, 
in  the  Reading  Museum,  more  than  9  in.  A  specimen  of 
similar  form  in  the  Hurbuck  hoard  from  County  Durham, 
in  the  British  Museum,  has  the  edge  not  less  than  10  in.  in 
length,  but  these  arms  belong  to  the  later,  or  Danish,  period. 
It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  form  is  also  represented  in 
those  North  German  collections  the  importance  of  which  in 
connection  with  our  own  archaeology  is  now  fully  recognized 
(Ch.  x).  One  example  of  several  in  the  Museum  at  Olden- 
burg is  given  PI.  xxx,  1.  A  modification  of  this  form  with 
an  extension  at  the  back  in  the  form  of  a  sort  of  hammer, 
of  which  a  beginning  is  seen  in  No.  9  on  PI.  xxix,  is 
shown  PI.  xxx,  2  in  a  piece  from  the  North  Kent  site  of 
Horton  Kirby. 

One  or  two  axe  heads  of  curious  forms  have  been  dredged 
out  of  the  Thames  and  Kennet  and  are  in  the  Museum  at 
Reading,  but  the  date  of  them  is  not  fixed  by  any  accom- 
panying finds.  One  of  these,  PI.  xxx,  3,  is  worth  illustrating 
because  it  agrees  somewhat  closely  with  one  of  the  types 
noticed  and  figured  by  M.  Delamain1  from  the  cemetery  at 
Herpes  in  western  France  and  with  specimens  in  the  plates 
of  M.  Barriere-Flavy's  work.2  The  form  occurs  also  in 
Hungary.3  The  presumption  is  accordingly  in  favour  of  an 
Anglo-Saxon  date.  It  is  not  of  a  Viking  type,  but  might 
conceivably  of  course  be  mediaeval,  though  such  a  close 
accordance  with  a  recognized  continental  type  of  the  period 
is  practically  sufficient  to  settle  the  question,  and  we  should 
thus  have  three  distinct  types  of  axe  head  to  include  in  an 
Anglo-Saxon    inventory,  the   francisca,  or    tilted-blade  form, 

1  Societe  Archeologique,  etc.,  dc  la  Charente,   Bulletin,  1890-91,  p.  185 
and  planche  1. 

2  Les  Arts  Industriels,  etc.,  pll.  xvi,  1  ;  xvn,  1  ;  xix,  5. 

3  e.g.  Hampel,  m,  Taf.  no. 


234  THE  SPEAR 

PI.   xxix,  4,  etc.,  the  broad-bladed   type  PI.   xxix,    10,  and 
the  drop-bladed  type,  if  the  name  may  be  used,  PI.  xxx,  3. 

It  is  important  to  distinguish  the  earlier  forms  of  the 
axe  head,  which  have  here  been  illustrated,  from  the  axe  head 
of  the  Danish  or  Viking  period.  No  better  example  of  this 
could  be  found  than  the  fine  iron  axe  head  with  inlaid  silver 
and  gilt  ornaments  found  at  Mammen  near  Viborg  in 
Denmark  and  preserved  in  the  Museum  at  Copenhagen. 
It  is  7  in.  long  and  has  the  projecting  spurs  on  both  sides 
of  the  opening  for  the  handle  characteristic  of  the  Viking 
type,  PI.  xxx,  4.  As  a  last  illustration  attention  may  be 
called  to  a  group  of  pins  for  the  hair,  of  the  Frankish  period, 
in  the  Museum  at  Namur,  PI.  xxx,  5,  where  (a)  shows  the 
pure  *  francisca '  form  and  (b)  the  form  erroneously  called 
'  Anglo-Saxon,'  (d)  unites  the  two  forms  in  one,  while  in 
(c)  we  have  an  example  of  the  Cross  in  a  distinctively  Chris- 
tian shape,  with  which  may  be  compared  the  cross-headed 
pin  from  Breach  Down,  Kent,  figured  PL  x,  5  (p.  11 5). 
(a)  (b)  (d)  are  ascribed  to  V  and  VI,  (c)  to  VII. 

THE  SPEAR 

The  Spatha,  the  Scramasax,  and  the  Axe  we  have  seen 
to  be  comparatively  rare  weapons  among  the  Anglo-Saxon 
warriors,  but  these  seem  to  have  been  universally  armed  with 
the  Spear.  Spear  heads  are  by  far  the  commonest  of  all  the 
weapons  found  in  Germanic  cemeteries  and  appear  in  all  parts 
in  varied  forms  and  sizes,  the  differences  in  which  seem  to  be 
without  any  distinct  racial  or  local  significance. 

The  Abbe  Cochet  remarks  *  '  avec  cette  physionomie  com- 
mune que  presentent  partout  les  armes  de  la  grande  famille 
teutonique,  qu'on  l'appelle  franque,  saxonne,  burgonde,  etc., 
il  y  a  aussi  partout  tant  de  nuances  dans  les  types  et  une  telle 
variete  dans  les  individus,  qu'il  serait  vrai  de  dire,  qu'a  la 
rigueur,  aucune  arme  ne  ressemble  parfaitement  a  l'autre.' 

1  Le  Tombeau  de  Cbi/deric,  p.  140. 


SPEAR  HEADS 


d 


The  scales  apply  approximately 
5  is  Continental 


OPEN  AND  CLOSED  SOCKETS  235 

With  very  few  exceptions — the  writer  has  only  come 
across  two  of  these — the  Anglo-Saxon  spear  heads,  which 
are  all  of  hammered  iron,  have  the  sockets  open  all  the  way 
up  along  one  side.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  when  the  weapon 
smith  had  fashioned  the  effective  part  of  the  head  of  solid  iron 
he  would  beat  out  thin  the  portion  destined  for  the  socket  and 
bring  it  round  into  a  tube-like  form.  The  two  edges  could 
then  be  made  to  overlap  and  be  welded  together  so  that  a 
complete  funnel-shaped  cylinder  was  formed,  or  they  might 
be  merely  brought  together  and  made  nearly  to  meet  but  not 
to  overlap  so  that  a  narrow  slit  was  still  left  open.  The 
method  of  welding  up  the  join  so  that  a  complete  cylinder 
was  formed  was  Roman,  and  it  is  universal  also  in  the  very 
numerous  spear  heads  found  in  the  Nydam  moss  in  Schleswig.1 
Exact  statistics  as  to  the  use  of  the  two  methods  by  all  the 
peoples  of  the  migration  period  are  wanting,  and  vague  state- 
ments are  of  no  service  in  such  a  matter.  Frankish  spear  heads 
however  have  split  ferules 2  like  ours,  and  Baron  de  Baye 
finds  this  also  the  case  in  Germany,  though  at  Reichenhall 
in  Bavaria  most  of  the  sockets  were  closed.3  De  Baye,  who 
examined  the  finds  from  the  Lombard  cemetery  at  Testona 
near  Turin  reports  closed  sockets,4  and  the  sockets  shown  by 
Hampel  in  the  plates  of  his  Alterthumer  are  closed.  The 
writer's  own  continental  notes  on  the  subject  are  not  suffici- 
ently full  to  be  of  much  value.  PI.  xxxn,  2,  3,  illustrate  the 
two  methods  in  lance  heads  found  at  Saxby,  Leicestershire. 
No.  4,  found  at  Brighton  and  in  the  Museum  there,  is  the 
only  other  English  closed  socket  the  writer  knows  from  an 
undoubted  Anglo-Saxon  grave.  Agreeing  in  this  technical 
peculiarity  of  the  split  socket,  the  Anglo-Saxon  spear  heads 
show  the  most  remarkable  differences  in  size  and  shape,  and 

1  Engelhardt,  'Denmark  in  the  Early  Iron  Age,  pll.  x,  xi. 

2  Pilloy,  Etudes,  1,  232;  Boulanger,  Marchelepot,  p.  45. 

3  Gr'dberfeld  von  Reichenhall,  p.  8 1 . 

*   The  Industrial  Arts  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  p.  20. 


236  THE  SPEAR 

it  is  evident  that  the  weapon  smith  delighted  to  exercise  his 
fancy  in  the  form  and  structure  of  the  arms.  It  should  be 
noticed  however  that  for  pure  beauty  of  outline  and  justness 
of  proportions  these  forged  iron  spear  heads  of  the  Germans 
cannot  compare  with  the  beautiful  cast  bronze  specimens  of 
the  Celtic  era.  In  dimensions  the  lance  heads  vary  from  a 
few  inches  to  a  couple  of  feet,  which  would  have  been  about  the 
length  of  No.  2a  on  PI.  xxxi  had  the  socket  been  complete.  It 
measures  now  1  ft.  6  in.,  and  comes  from  Sarre. 

PI.  xxxi  exhibits  several  groups  from  different  regions. 
No.  1  is  a  South  Saxon  group  from  High  Down  cemetery, 
Sussex,  preserved  at  Ferring  Grange,  where  Mr.  Edwin  Benty 
has  kindly  allowed  the  writer  to  photograph  it  ;  No.  2  gives 
a  few  from  Kent,  from  Sarre  and  Kingston  ;  No.  3  are 
Anglian  from  Little  Wilbraham,  Cambs,  etc.,  at  Audley  End, 
where  they  have  been  photographed  by  the  kind  permission  of 
Lord  Braybroke,  and  No.  4  is  a  group  from  the  cemetery  at 
Darlington,  Durham,  in  the  collection  of  Mr.  Edward  Wooler, 
representing  Northumbrian  examples.  Lastly,  No.  5  is  the 
spear  head  from  the  tomb  of  Childeric,  the  earliest  datable 
example  from  the  regions  with  which  we  are  chiefly  concerned. 
This  is  long  and  narrow  and  possesses  no  median  rib.  In  its 
present  condition  it  measures  about  9  in.  by  1^  in.,  and  may  be 
taken  as  typical  of  a  simple  type  that  is  perpetuated  through 
the  succeeding  periods.  Other  forms,  as  is  seen  on  PI.  xxxi, 
are  broader  and  more  leaf-shaped,  while  the  elongated  lozenge 
appears  as  a  variant  of  this.  The  most  distinctive  form  is  that 
of  the  lance  head  at  Maidstone  found  at  Sarre,  2a.  This  de 
Baye  claims  as  specially  Anglo-Saxon,  but  it  does  occur  some- 
times abroad,  see  Lindenschmit,  Handbuch^  p.  173.  It  may 
however  be  regarded  provisionally  as  a  south  of  England 
fashion  though  the  cemetery  at  Little  Wilbraham,  Cambs, 
produced  it,  PL  xxxi,  3.  The  Darlington  spear  heads  are  of 
the  more  primitive  elongated  shape.  The  representations  on 
PL  xxxi  are  approximately  to  scale. 


XXXII 

facing  p.  237 


THE  ANGON,  ARROW  HEADS,  ETC. 


12  is  Continental 


DETAILS  OF  SPEAR  HEADS  237 

The  development  of  the  median  rib,  a  pronounced  feature 
in  the  earlier  cast-bronze  spear  heads,  represents  an  additional 
effort  on  the  part  of  the  weapon  smith.  Some  of  the 
specimens  on  PI.  xxxi  exhibit  it,  but  when  it  is  more  accen- 
tuated it  passes  through  a  singular  phase  illustrated  by 
an  example  from  Fairford,  Gloucestershire,  16  in.  long, 
in  the  Ashmolean  Museum,  PI.  xxxn,  10.  Here  one  wing 
of  the  blade  is  depressed  below  the  other  and  the  process  on 
the  other  side  is  reversed  so  that  the  section  is  approximately 
a  zigzag.  This  is  characteristically  Anglo-Saxon,  although 
it  is  occasionally  found  abroad,  as  at  Bessungen  by  Darmstadt,1 
and  in  an  example  figured  by  M.  Pilloy,2  who  gives  the 
probably  correct  explanation  that  it  is  due  to  a  desire  on  the 
part  of  the  hammerer  to  give  the  impression  of  a  pronounced 
central  rib.  The  older  notion  was  that  the  arrangement 
gave  a  rotary  motion  to  the  spear  in  its  flight,  but  this 
would  not  be  the  effect  of  it,  for  the  depressions  are  not 
set  obliquely  but  in  straight  lines  from  point  to  butt  and 
there  is  nothing  to  give  a  twist.  Furthermore,  the  rotation 
of  a  blade  of  appreciable  width  would  be  resisted  by  the  air 
and  the  course  of  the  flight  proportionately  checked,  while 
the  entry  of  the  point  into  the  body  would  be  sensibly 
hindered,  as  in  the  case  of  the  spinning  cricket  ball  which 
does  not  glide  sweetly  into  the  fielder's  hands  but  has  a 
provoking  tendency  to  resist  entry.  That  the  explanation 
given  above  is  the  correct  one  may  be  seen  from  a  curious 
example  from  Suffolk  in  the  Pitt  Rivers  Museum  at  Farnham, 
Dorset,  shown  PI.  xxxn,  9.  Here  the  finished  blade  has 
been  deeply  scored  on  one  side  of  the  centre,  though  only  by 
a  groove  running  part  of  the  way  along  its  length,  and  there 
is  a  corresponding  groove  on  the  other  side  of  the  blade. 
It  is  curious  to  find  this  crude  attempt  to  simulate  the  central 
rib,  generally  so  marked  a  feature  on  the  noble  British  bronze 
spear  heads  of  the  earlier  epoch,  for  in  forging  a  spear  head 

1  Lindcnschmit,  Hanabucb,  p.  174.  -  Etudes,  i,  232. 


238  THE  SPEAR 

it  is  comparatively  easy  to  make  the  median  rib,  and  a  weapon 
smith  who  could  fashion  an  umbo  would  have  thought  little 
of  the  task.  Possibly  the  spear  head,  an  object  in  very 
common  use,  was  made  at  times  by  an  unskilled  village 
craftsman,  while  the  umbos  were  the  work  of  the  more 
practised  weapon  smith. 

THE  ANGON 

No  self-respecting  writer  on  Teutonic  antiquities  can 
help  referring  to  the  description  by  Agathias  of  the  weapon 
known  as  the  '  angon,'  a  barbed  spear  of  peculiar  construction 
and  use.  Agathias,  a  Byzantine  historian  of  VI,  wrote  in 
Greek  an  account  of  the  wars  waged  by  the  generals  of 
Justinian  against  the  Teutonic  invaders  of  Italy.  In  Chapter  5 
of  the  second  book  of  his  History  he  describes  the  manner 
of  fighting  of  the  Franks  and  Alamanni  whom  Butilinus  had 
led  across  the  Alps  and  who  were  now  opposed  by  Narses. 
Their  chief  weapon  he  says  was  the  '  angon.'  '  These  angons,' 
he  goes  on,  *  are  spears,  not  very  small  but  at  the  same  time 
of  no  considerable  size,  suitable  for  use  as  javelins,  if  need 
arise,  and  also  serving  for  a  charge  against  opponents  fighting 
hand  to  hand.'  He  also  tells  us  that  the  javelin  was  barbed, 
and  when  it  had  pierced  a  shield  or  entered  a  body  it  could 
not  be  withdrawn,  while  the  shaft  of  it  was  for  the  most  part 
plated  with  iron.  From  this  last  it  followed  that  the  head 
could  not  be  cut  off  so  as  to  free  the  stricken  man  from  the 
encumbrance.  It  is  natural  to  think  here  of  the  Roman 
pilum,  which  Vegetius1  describes  as  a  missile  weapon  that 
'  could  not  be  cut  away  when  fixed  in  a  shield,'  and  which  has 
come  down  to  us  in  actual  examples  as  well  as  in  represen- 
tations on  Roman   military   tombstones.2     The   pilum  was  a 

1  De  Re  Militari,  i,  xx. 

2  Lindenschmit,  Tracbt  und  Bewaffnung  des  Romiscben  Heeres,  p.  12  and 
Taf.  iv,  xi. 


ANGON  AND  PILUM  239 

very  heavy  javelin,  with  point  and  iron  shaft  about  2  ft.  6  in. 
long,  that  was  fixed  at  the  butt  end  to  a  shaft  of  wood 
so  as  to  make  the  whole  length,  as  may  be  judged  from 
tombstones,  between  six  and  seven  feet. 

That  the  '  angon '  of  the  Germans  was  derived  from  the 
pilum  Lindenschmit  considered  '  unstreitbar,'  and  the  give- 
and-take  between  the  Roman  and  barbarian  equipments  for 
war  that  went  on  during  the  early  centuries  of  the  Empire * 
would  render  this  not  unlikely,  but  other  archaeologists 
have  expressed  a  doubtful  opinion.2  Whether  the  pilum 
was  barbed  is  uncertain,  for  existing  pilum  heads  are  not  so 
treated,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  was  a  missile  and  not 
suitable,  as  Agathias  says  was  the  case  with  the  angon,  for 
hand-to-hand  combat.  Barbed  javelins  of  a  lighter  make 
than  the  pilum  seem  to  have  been  used  by  the  Roman 
legionaries  or  auxiliaries  and  an  interesting  specimen  was 
found  in  1833  at  the  station  Magna  (Carvoran)  on  the 
Roman  Wall  between  Tyne  and  Solway,  in  a  well  36  ft.  deep. 
It  is  now  preserved  in  the  Black  Gate  Museum  at  Newcastle 
and  is  figured  by  permission  of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries  of 
Newcastle,  PI.  xxxn,  11.  It  is  1  ft.  9  in.  in  length.  A  piece 
exactly  similar  is  preserved  in  the  Musee  d'Artillerie  at  Paris, 
under  the  number  690,  and  long  slender  barbed  spear  heads 
of  a  form  almost  the  same  occurred  in  the  Nydam  find  of 
IV  in  Schleswig  and  are  figured  on  pi.  xi  of  the  work 
of  Engelhardt.  These  it  may  be  urged  are  not  properly 
speaking  angons  but  barbed  spears  of  a  lighter  make,  and  we 
may  associate  with  them  the  Bifrons  piece  figured  PI.  xxxn,  8, 
the  uppermost  of  the  three  indicated  by  that  number.  This 
is  a  barbed  spear  head  9^  in.  long  with  open  socket,  and  is 

1  Arts  and  Crafts  of  our  Teutonic  Forefathers,  ch.  hi. 

2  e.g.  W.  M.  Wylie  in  Archaeologia,  xxxvi,  p.  82,  'historic  evidence 
seems  rather  opposed  to  the  opinion  that  the  angon  was  merely  an  imitation 
of  the  pilum.'  De  Baye,  in  Industrie  Longobarde,  Paris,  1888,  p.  31,  '  le  role, 
l'usage  de  l'angon  n'e"tait  pas  celui  du  pilum.' 


240  THE  SPEAR 

a  rare  and  interesting  object.  Another  of  much  the  same 
size  but  in  poor  condition  was  found  at  Beddington,  Surrey, 
and  is  preserved  in  the  Public  Library  at  Croydon. 

The  angon  proper  Lindenschmit  has  shown  to  possess  as 
its  special  characteristic  a  solid  point  square  in  section  with 
barbs  that,  at  any  rate  in  the  present  condition  of  the  weapons, 
lie  close  to  the  shaft.1  Typical  pieces  of  the  kind  are  preserved 
in  the  Museums  at  Mainz  and  Wiesbaden,  but  perhaps  the 
most  perfect  specimen  is  that  from  the  Belgian  cemetery  of 
Harmignies  now  displayed  in  the  Musee  du  Cinquantenaire  at 
Brussels  and  figured  here  PI.  xxxn,  12.  The  photograph  in 
the  middle  shows  the  whole  weapon  the  length  of  which  is 
3  ft.  6  in.,  and  those  above  and  below  give  on  a  larger  scale 
the  butt  end  where  a  wooden  shaft  was  inserted,  and  the  point, 
the  length  of  which  with  the  barbs  is  3  in.  Nothing  has  been 
found  in  our  own  country  so  well  preserved  as  this,  but  the 
specimen  from  Croydon,  PI.  xxxn,  15,  3  ft.  2|-  in.  long,  has 
an  unmistakable  square  head,  though  the  barbs  in  the  present 
condition  of  the  piece  make  no  show.  Angons,  as  a  rule  in  a 
somewhat  mutilated  condition,  have  been  found  several  times 
in  Kent,  and  may  be  seen  in  the  Museum  of  the  Kent  Archaeo- 
logical Society  at  Maidstone,  at  the  Gravesend  Free  Library, 
in  the  British  Museum,  and  at  Ferring  Grange,  Sussex.  A 
barbed  spear  head  26  in.  long  was  found  in  the  barrow  at 
Taplow. 

SPEAR  SHAFTS 

The  subject  of  the  spear  cannot  be  left  without  a  word  as 
to  the  wooden  shaft.  Fragments  of  the  wood  remain  in  many 
cases  adhering  to  the  socket,  and  the  rivet  or  rivets  that  held 
the  head  to  the  shaft  often  remains  as  in  the  example  figured 
PI.  xxxi  1,  2.  Analysis  has  shown  in  many  cases  that  this  wood 
was  ash.     The  length  of  the  shaft  can  be  judged  from  the  fact 

1  Handbucb,   178  f. 


THE  BOW  AND  ARROW  ±41 

that  the  weapon  was  often  furnished  at  the  butt  end  with  a 
ferule  or  conical  point  by  which  it  could  be  fixed  firmly  in  the 
ground.  This,  being  of  iron,  has  like  the  point  been  preserved, 
and  as  the  two  lie  in  a  freshly  opened  grave  the  distance  be- 
tween them  gives  the  length  of  the  shaft.  This  seems  to  have 
been  a  little  longer  than  the  warrior's  own  height  and  the 
weapon  could  accordingly  be  laid  by  his  side  in  the  grave,  as 
was  the  case  in  the  Shepperton  burial  figured  PI.  xviii,  1. 
Faussett  gave  the  lengths  of  6  ft.  and  7  ft.  for  two  Gilton 
specimens. 

The  diameter  of  the  shaft  can  also  be  estimated  from  the 
data  furnished  by  the  head  and  the  ferule.  Faussett  found 
that  a  spear  in  grave  12  at  Gilton  tapered  from  a  diameter  of 
1  in.  at  the  head  to  £■  in.  at  the  ferule.  The  closed  spear 
socket  at  Derby,  PL  xxxn,  3,  measures  |-  in.  in  internal 
diameter.  About  f  in.  to  1  in.  may  be  assumed  as  the 
average  diameter  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  spear  shaft. 

Of  the  two  ferules  shown,  one,  PI.  xxxn,  13,  of  conical 
form,  is  in  the  Guildhall  Museum  at  London  and  another  such 
is  seen  in  the  middle  of  the  group  of  spear  heads  at  Audley 
End,  PI.  xxxi,  3.  PI.  xxxii,  14,  is  a  ferule  of  a  more  elaborate 
kind  in  the  Rochester  Museum,  and  here  the  bottom  of  the 
shaft  was  bound  with  an  iron  band  below  which  projected  a 
point  that  was  embedded  at  its  other  end  in  the  wood.  Similar 
ferules  exist  in  other  collections. 


THE  BOW  AND  ARROW 

The  last  of  the  implements  of  war  to  be  dealt  with  here  is 
the  bow  and  arrow.  The  Anglo-Saxons  like  the  rest  of  the 
Teutonic  peoples  understood  archery  and  we  have  bowmen 
represented  on  the  Franks  Casket  of  about  700  a.d.  (p.  205) 
and  on  a  stone  at  Hexham  that  Commendatore  Rivoira  admits 
may  be  of  the  time  of  Wilfrid.  Nothing  is  rarer  however  in 
tomb  furniture  than  the  arrow  head  or  than  traces  of  the  bow 

III  Q 


242  THE  BOW  AND  ARROW 

and  its  appertainances.  In  one  grave  at  Chessell  Down  in  the 
Isle  of  Wight  and  in  one  at  Bifrons  traces  have  been  found 
that  seemed  to  indicate  the  presence  of  a  bow.  Arrow  heads 
were  found  at  Chessell  Down,  and  a  few  have  come  to  light  in 
different  finds.  PI.  xxxn,  5,  shows  a  good  specimen  in  the 
Douglas  collection  in  the  Ashmolean,  6  and  7  are  in  Warwick 
Museum,  and  No.  7,  which  was  found  in  the  churchyard  at 
Radford  Semele  near  Warwick,  may  be  mediaeval.  The  set 
figured  under  No.  1  on  PI.  xxxn  are  part  of  the  interesting 
finds  at  Buttsole,  near  Eastry,  Kent,  already  referred  to  (p.  203). 
They  are  in  the  Museum  at  Maidstone  and  vary  in  length 
from  4^-  in.  to  i\  in.  It  is  open  to  any  one  to  argue  that 
these  are  the  points  of  small  javelins  rather  than  of  arrows. 
Faussett  believed  that  light  missiles  of  the  kind  were  often 
placed  in  the  Kentish  graves  (p.  706). 


XXXIII 

facing  p.  243 


FIBULAE  AS  WORN 


All  Continental 


CHAPTER  V 

TOMB  FURNITURE  :    (II)  THE  MORPHOLOGY  OF 
THE  FIBULA 

For  the  fastenings  of  dress  the  Teutonic  peoples  of  the 
migration  period  used  the  brooch,  the  buckle,  the  clasp,  the 
pin,  and  to  each  of  them  they  applied  all  the  taste  and  cunning 
craftsmanship  available.  The  clasp  and  the  pin  are,  as  objects, 
comparatively  unimportant,  though  the  presence  or  absence  of 
the  former  in  Anglo-Saxon  graves  will  be  seen  to  possess 
much  archaeological  significance.  The  brooch  and  the  buckle 
on  the  other  hand  are  not  only  archaeologically  important  in 
relation  to  questions  of  date  and  ethnology,  but  in  themselves 
offer  specimens  of  the  most  elaborate  and  artistically  pleasing 
work  that  our  Teutonic  craftsmen  have  left  to  us. 

Historically  speaking  there  is  a  marked  difference  between 
the  buckle  and  the  fibula,  the  former  being  much  more  dis- 
tinctively Teutonic.  c  Rien  de  plus  inevitable  que  la  boucle,' 
wrote  the  Abbe  Cochet,1  '  dans  la  sepulture  franque,  burgonde, 
saxonne  ou  allemanique  :  elle  est  dans  la  tombe  le  caractere 
inherent  de  la  race  teutonique.  On  ne  signale  pas  de  boucles 
dans  la  sepulture  des  Gaulois,  si  riche  de  colliers,  de  bracelets 
et  d'armilles.  Je  ne  Tai  jamais  rencontree  dans  l'urne  du 
Romain  du  Haut-Empire  d'ou  la  fibule  est  si  souvent  sortie. 
Je  ne  sais  meme  si  Ton  en  a  tire  une  seule  des  sarcophages  du 
Bas-Empire,  ou  pourtant  les  broches  et  les  fibules  abondent. 
C'est  que  si  l'armille  est  gauloise,  si  la  fibule  est  romaine,  la 
boucle  a  son  tour  est  essentiellement  teutonique.'  As  regards 
the  historical  position  of  the  buckle  and  the  relation  between 

1  Le  Tombe au  de  Childeric,  p.  233. 

243 


244  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

it  and  the  brooch  as  objects  of  use  there  are  some  good 
remarks  in  Alois  Riegl's  much  discussed  work  on  the  art  of 
the  period.1  Their  comparative  importance  depends  upon  the 
styles  of  dress  of  which  they  form  the  complement.  The 
classical  vesture  was  free  and  flowing  ;  the  edges  of  the  stuff 
were  brought  together  in  places  and  fastened  by  a  pin  or  a 
brooch,  and  the  robe  thus  constituted  was  confined  by  a  slight 
girdle  round  the  form.  In  the  early  centuries  of  the  Christian 
era  costume  underwent  two  changes  of  importance  for  the 
present  subject.  Among  the  classical  peoples  in  both  the 
eastern  and  the  western  half  of  the  Roman  Empire  there  came 
in  a  taste  for  a  profusion  of  jewels  and  jewelled  appendages 
of  robes,  in  which  we  may  see  oriental  fashions  breaking  in 
upon  the  older  classical  simplicity.  A  good  example  of  this 
orientalized  dress  can  be  seen  in  PI.  xxxiii,  4,  which  repro- 
duces an  ivory  in  the  Museum  at  Vienna  representing  one  of 
the  later  Emperors  enthroned  in  his  robes  of  state.  This 
change  of  fashion  prepares  us  for  the  sumptuous  display  of 
jewels  favoured  by  the  Germanic  noble  and  his  lady.  The 
other  alteration  noticed  above  is  the  coming  into  vogue  among 
the  new  denizens  of  the  lands  of  the  Western  Empire  of  a 
style  of  dress  less  free  and  flowing  than  the  loose  classical 
tunic  and  mantle,  and  needing  to  be  bound  more  closely  about 
the  figure. 

The  girdle,  as  Riegl  points  out,  now  becomes  the  stiff 
belt,  and  for  this  is  required  a  firm  fastening  in  the  form  of  a 
buckle.  It  is  a  notable  feature  of  this  period  in  the  history 
of  western  costume  that  the  buckle  now  makes  its  appearance 
as  a  fastening  side  by  side  with  the  brooch,  which  it  ultimately 
almost  displaces.  At  the  beginning  of  the  migration  period 
the  brooch,  or,  to  use  its  classical  name,  the  fibula,  was  in  full 
possession  of  the  field  ;  it  had  behind  it  a  history  in  classical 
lands  of  more  than  a  thousand  years,  and  had  already  passed 
through  a  whole  series  of  typological  changes.  The  buckle 
1  Die  Spdtromische  Kunstindustrie. 


XXXIV 

lacing  p.  245 


SQUARE  HEADED   FIBULAE  FROM  BIFRONS 


XXXIV 


XXXV 

facing  p.  245 


ROUND  HEADED,  CRUCIFORM,  AND  BIRD  FIBULAE  FROM  BIFRONS 


XXXVi 


XXXVI 

facing  p.  245 


PLATE  AND  RING  FIBULAE  FROM  BIFRONS 


000 


x 


THE  FIBULA  AND  THE  BUCKLE  245 

on  the  other  hand  only  seems  to  have  come  into  use  in  imperial 
Roman  times.  It  appears  at  Pompeii  for  example  in  the 
simplest  possible  shapes,  though  an  ornate  example  was  found 
at  Herculaneum.  The  somewhat  enigmatical  object  figured 
in  Faussett's  Inventorium  Sepulchrale,  pi.  vin,  1 1,  is  a  buckle 
of  Roman  (not  barbaric)  workmanship,  and  one  of  similar 
shape  but  in  the  similitude  of  the  head  of  a  cat  or  leopard  has 
recently  passed  with  the  Trinity  College  Library  Collection  to 
the  Cambridge  Museum  of  Archaeology.  Some  archaeologists 
have  held  that  the  buckle  was  independently  invented  in 
northern  Europe  at  the  beginning  of  the  migration  period,  but 
whether  this  was  the  case  or  whether  the  Germans  took  it 
over  from  the  Romans,  it  was  used  at  first  in  a  comparatively 
undeveloped  form.  Its  history  is  accordingly  traceable  in 
Teutonic  tombs  from  its  very  beginnings,  and  we  see  it 
assuming  increased  importance  as  time  goes  on  till  it  becomes 
in  point  of  intrinsic  value  and  artistic  elaboration  a  rival  of  the 
old  established  and  popular  fibula.  There  is  however  always 
this  difference  between  the  buckle  and  the  fibula,  that  the 
former  preserves  to  the  end  its  original  character  of  a  thing  of 
strength,  intended  in  its  primary  use  to  gird  the  warrior's  belt 
tightly  round  his  frame,  and  it  is  accordingly  nearly  always 
solidly  constructed  of  bronze  or  iron,  and  in  form  keeps  always 
pretty  closely  to  a  normal  pattern.  The  fibula  is  a  slighter 
piece,  more  ornate,  and  admitting  of  a  far  greater  variety  in 
shape.  In  the  graves  of  the  central  Teutonic  period,  about  VI, 
the  buckle  and  the  fibula  are  found  side  by  side,  but  later  on, 
especially  among  the  Alamanni,  the  buckle  almost  comes  to 
supersede  the  fibula,  and  among  the  Franks,  the  Alamanni, 
and  the  Burgundians  the  piece  develops  to  new  and  elaborate 
forms,  which,  perhaps  for  the  reasons  already  given  (p.  1 74  f.), 
are  not  represented  in  our  own  Anglo-Saxon  cemeteries.  The 
fibula,  it  needs  hardly  to  be  said,  never  really  goes  out  of  use, 
as  there  are  few  styles  of  dress  in  which  such  an  ornamental 
appendage  cannot  find  ready  employment,  and  there  is  no  real 


246  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

break  of  tradition  between  the  ancient  and  the  modern  brooch, 
though  special  forms  of  the  object,  such  as  the  safety  pin,  may 
for  centuries  have  passed  out  of  vogue. 

The  subject  of  the  Germanic  fibula,  a  somewhat  large  and 
complicated  one,  may  be  suitably  introduced  by  a  survey  of  the 
different  types  that  have  been  collected  from  the  one  repre- 
sentative cemetery  of  Bifrons  that  we  have  been  keeping 
specially  in  view.  On  Plates  xxxiv  to  xxxvi  are  shown  more 
than  thirty-five  different  fibulae  from  this  one  locality, 
representing  at  least  ten  distinct  types.  On  PI.  xxxiv  all  the 
examples  fall  under  the  category  '  square  headed  '  for  in  every 
case  a  rectangular  plate  broader  than  it  is  high,  adorned  in 
various  fashions,  terminates  the  piece  at  the  top.  On  PI.  xxxv 
there  are  three  types  or  rather  sub-types.  Nos.  i  to  4,  6  to  8 
are  called  £  round  headed '  because  the  terminal  plate  above  is 
of  semicircular  outline,  and  Nos.  1  and  4  are  often  termed 
•  radiating  '  or  '  digitated  '  on  account  of  the  projecting  knobs. 
Nos.  5,  10  and  12  are  c  cruciform'  because  from  the 
rectangular  upper  plate  three  knobs,  at  the  top  and  the  two 
sides,  convey  the  idea  of  this  shape,  while  Nos.  9  and  13  are 
probably  derived  from  the  cruciform  ones.  Lastly,  No.  1 1  is 
a  so-called  *  bird '  fibula,  the  whole  piece  taking  the  aspect  of  a 
parrot-like  creature  with  a  pronounced  hooked  beak.  The 
fibulae  on  PI.  xxxvi  are  of  quite  different  types,  affecting  the 
shape  of  a  round  flat  disc  that  may  be  ornamented  in  several 
different  ways  ;  a  saucer-shaped  disc  with  the  edges  turned  up 
all  round  ;  a  circular  ring  ;  and  a  broad  flat  ring,  or,  if  we  like 
to  call  it  so,  a  disc  with  the  centre  pierced  out.  The  first  kind, 
Nos.  6,  10,  is  best  called  a  '  disc  '  fibula  ;  the  second,  Nos.  1,  5, 
a  saucer  fibula,  while  No.  7  of  which  only  the  back  is  visible  is 
a  variation  of  this  type  called  an  *  applied  '  fibula  (p.  275)  ;  the 
third  kind,  Nos.  2,  3,  4,  9,  11,  13,  are  'ring'  or  'annular* 
fibulae  ;  and  the  best  name  for  the  fourth  kind,  No.  8,  is 
'  quoit '  fibula.  These  distinctive  terms  it  is  well  to  retain,  as 
the  vague  words  *  round '  or  *  circular,'  too  often  employed  in 


XXXVII 

facing  p.  247 


TYPES  NOT  REPRESENTED  AT  BIFRONS 


/,  .?,  are  Continental 


FIBULAE  AT  BIFRONS  N247 

descriptions,  are  of  uncertain  significance,  and  would  apply- 
equally  well  to  all  the  sub-types  on  this  plate. 

No.  12  on  PI.  xxxvi  shows  two  fibulae  of  the  '  saucer '  kind 
united  by  a  light  chain.  The  brooches  would  be  fixed  one  on 
each  shoulder  and  the  chain  would  hang  across  the  breast, 
possibly  with  some  light  pendant  attached  to  it.  This  is  a 
fashion  more  in  vogue  among  the  Celtic  peoples  *  than  among 
the  Germans,  though  there  are  several  instances  in  which 
Teutonic  fibulae  show  traces  of  attachments  of  the  kind.  The 
specially  precious  one,  the  '  Kingston  '  fibula,  see  Frontispiece, 
has  a  loop  by  which  a  protective  chain  can  be  fastened  to  it,  and 
some  c  long '  fibulae  presently  to  be  discussed  have  similar 
loops  at  the  end,  while  the  sumptuous  *  ibis '  fibula  in  the 
treasure  of  Petrossa,  PI.  xlviii,  i  (p.  279),  has  a  golden  chain 
attached.  A  particular  form  of  brooch  found  in  the  Alpine 
regions  north  of  Italy  and  probably  Lombard  has  a  transverse 
arm  projecting  below  the  bow  to  which  a  chain  can  be  fastened, 
and  fibulae  are  sometimes  linked  by  chains  fixed  round  the 
bow.     See  PI.  xxxvn,  1,2. 

There  are  very  few  of  the  recognized  fibula  types  found  in 
Anglo-Saxon  Britain  that  are  not  represented  at  Bifrons,  but 
for  the  sake  of  completeness  these  omitted  ones  may  be  illus- 
trated here  before  any  discussion  of  the  different  forms  and 
ornaments  is  begun.  PI.  xxxvn  therefore  gives  us  in  Nos. 
3  and  4  two  *  penannular '  brooches,2  of  which  No.  3,  from 
Higham,  Kent,  is  in  the  Museum  at  Rochester,  and  No.  4, 
from  Duston,  Northants,  is  at  Northampton  ;  this  is  a  form  of 
brooch  not  so  common  in  Germanic  graves  as  it  is  among 
Celtic  ■  finds'  and  in  the  later  Viking  period  :  in  Nos.  5,  6,  7 
some  '  equal  armed '  fibulae,  of  which  No.  5  is  a  pair  recently 
found  at  Alfriston,  Sussex,  and  now  in  the  Museum  at  Lewes, 

1  Romilly  Allen,  Celtic  Jrt,  p.  103. 

2  Later  on,  PI.  cix,  2  (p.  457),  will  be  shown  an  object  from  Bifrons 
which  is  there  taken  as  a  bracelet,  though  very  good  judges  think  that  it  is 
really  a  penannular  brooch  that  has  lost  its  pin. 


248  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

No.  6  is  at  Burton-on-Trent,  and  No.  7,  from  Kempston, 
Beds,  is  in  the  British  Museum  ;  while  Nos.  8,  9,  10  are 
so-called  '  trefoil  headed  '  fibulae,  of  which  No.  10  is  one  found 
in  the  Roman  station  of  Birdoswald  in  Cumberland  and  now  at 
Newcastle,  No.  8  is  a  pair  from  Stapenhill  by  Burton-on-Trent 
where  they  are  preserved,  and  No.  9  is  at  Ferring  Grange  from 
the  South  Saxon  cemetery  at  High  Down  above  Worthing,  the 
scattered  localities  showing  the  wide  distribution  of  the  form. 

The  above  may  be  held  to  exhaust  the  chief  types  of  fibula 
with  which  we  are  concerned,  though  under  each  main  heading 
there  are  of  course  numerous  varieties,  and  single  specimens  of 
each  variety  bear  the  true  impress  of  individual  handwork  in 
that  even  where  the  intention  has  been  to  turn  out  a  pair  no 
two  are  exactly  alike.1  So  numerous  and  so  diverse  are  these 
fibulae,  and  so  much  ingenuity  did  the  craftsman  exhibit  in  the 
enrichment  he  lavished  on  them,  that  there  is  no  class  of  objects 
more  suitable  for  furnishing  a  conspectus  of  Anglo-Saxon 
ornament  during  the  period  with  which  we  have  to  deal. 

The  subject  falls  naturally  into  two  parts,  (1)  the  typo- 
logical development  of  the  form  of  the  fibula  in  its  different 
species,  and,  (2)  the  character  and  history  of  fibula  ornamenta- 
tion. These  species  may  be  grouped  under  three  main  types, 
the  safety  pin  type,  including  the  sub-types  *  square  headed,' 
'round  headed,'  'cruciform,'  'trefoil  headed,'  and  'equal 
armed,'  all  sometimes  grouped  under  the  name  '  long '  fibulae  ; 
the  plate  type,  embracing  'disc,'  'applied,'  'saucer,'  'button,' 
and  '  bird '  fibulae,  with  a  few  abnormal  forms  ;  and  the  ring 
type,  including  '  annular,'  '  penannular  '  and  '  quoit '  fibulae, 
and  of  these  the  first  is  from  the  typological  point  of  view  by 
far  the  most  important.  A  discussion  of  these  types  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  forms  evolved  in  the  course  of  their 
development  will  now  follow,  a  beginning  being  made  with  the 
safety  pin  type. 

This  owes  its  name  to  the  fact  of  its  reintroduction  quite 
1  For  an  example  of  this  see  later  on  (p.  315). 


THE  SAFETY  PIN  TYPE 


249 


in  our  own  time  for  the  sake  of  securing  the  young  of  the 
human  species  from  its  natural  enemy  the  insistent  pin-point. 
The  invention  is  quite  three  thousand  years  old,  and  the 
evolution  of  the  type  can  be  traced  from  the  very  earliest 
beginnings,  while  all  through  its  long  history  we  find  primitive 
forms  from  time  to  time  recurring.  If  we  turn  over  to-day  a 
heap  of  the  common  safety  pins  of  modern  commerce  we  shall 
soon  find  one  that  consists  in  nothing  but  a  single  length  of 
wire  that  can  be  straightened  out  till  it  becomes  again  what 
it  was  at  first,  a  long  pin  with  a  point  but  with  no  head.  Such 
pins  are  represented  in  finds  from  the  earliest  ages  of  metal  and 


Fig.  10. — Below,  early  fibula  of  the  Pesciera  type,  natural  size  ; 
above,  fibula  from  Kingston,  Kent,  enlarged. 


are  substitutes  for  the  neolithic  pins  of  bone,  or  the  still  more 
primitive  thorn,  with  which  Tacitus,  who  was  possibly  theoriz- 
ing, tells  us  the  Germans  of  the  Hinterland  fastened  their 
clothing.1  To  prevent  such  a  pin  from  slipping  out  there 
would  at  some  time  or  another  present  itself  the  device  of 
bending  or  doubling  over  the  upper  part  of  it  and  giving  it  a 
catch  round  the  point  where  this  projected  through  the  stuff. 
Such  a  catch  could  be  undone  when  the  pin  was  to  be  with- 
drawn, and  remain  as  a  sort  of  loop  to  take  the  point  again 
when   it  had  been   reinserted.     A  recognition  of  the   elastic 

1   De  Mor.  Germ.,  xvn,  '  Tegumen  omnibus  sagum  fibula  aut,  si  desit, 
spina  consertum.' 


250  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

properties  of  hammered  metal  wire  would  suggest  giving  a 
spiral  turn  to  the  shank  of  the  pin  where  it  was  doubled  over, 
and  this  would  secure  a  spring  which  would  keep  the  catch 
always  pressed  against  the  pin  just  at  the  point.  The  simplest 
of  modern  safety  pins  referred  to  above  illustrates  this  arrange- 
ment, but  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  one  of  the  very  earliest 
of  all  fibula  types,  that  named  from  the  place  of  discovery 
Pesciera  on  Lake  Garda,  is  of  almost  exactly  the  same  form, 
and  the  same  may  be  said  of  a  specimen  found  in  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  tomb  in  Kent,  in  conjunction  with  one  of  the  most 
ornate  fibulae,  of  quite  another  type,  ever  discovered.1  The 
sketches,  Fig.  10,  illustrate  this. 

What  we  are  concerned  with  now  is  the  development  of 
this  type  of  fibula  from  the  Pesciera  stage,  and  this  may  be 
sketched  very  briefly  up  to -the  point  when  the  distinctive 
forms  of  the  period  of  the  Teutonic  migrations  make  their 
appearance.  In  the  matter  of  nomenclature  it  is  usual  to  call 
the  half  of  the  original  pin  that  is  doubled  over  and  shows 
above  the  stuff,  the  bow,  because,  if  it  be  in  some  degree 
arched,  it  gives  room  for  the  bunch  of  stuff  beneath  it.  The 
part  where  the  bend  or  spiral  turn  comes  is  called  the  head,  and 
the  point  and  the  catch  come  together  at  the  foot.  Alike  in 
its  bow,  its  head,  and  its  foot,  the  early  fibula  passes  through 
many  modifications,  that  have  been  worked  out  from  the  typo- 
logical point  of  view  by  writers  such  as  Otto  Tischler,  Riksan- 
tikvar  Hildebrand,  Professor  Montelius,  and  O.  Almgren. 
All  we  are  concerned  with  here  are  those  modifications 
which,  occurring  before  the  migration  period,  brought  into 
existence  the  forms  with  which  the  Teutonic  craftsman  had  to 
deal.  From  the  present  point  of  view  the  changes  effected  in 
the  head  are  of  the  chief  importance  and  will  be  dealt  with 
first.  An  epoch-making  innovation  had  been  introduced  in 
the  La  Tene  period  before  the  Christian  era,  according  to 
which  the  turns  in  the  spiral  were  multiplied,  and  instead  of 

1  See  Frontispiece. 


XXXVIII 

facing  p.  251 


EARLY  FIBULAE  AND  FIBULAE  FROM  SACKRAU 


3,  considerably  reduced  ;  4,  5,  somewhat  enlarged 
All  Continental 


EVOLUTION  OF  THE  LONG  FIBULA  251 

being  coiled  on  one  side  only  of  the  bow,  as  in  the  modern 
safety  pin,  were  repeated  with  the  same  number  of  turns  on 
the  other  side.  The  coils  were  started  on  one  side  and  when 
they  had  been  carried  out  sufficiently  far  the  wire  was  taken 
back  across  to  a  corresponding  distance  on  the  other  side  of 
the  axis  of  the  bow  and  other  turns  made  from  without  inwards, 
till,  when  the  wire  was  brought  back  to  the  middle,  it  was 
sent  straight  down  towards  the  foot  to  form  the  pin.  An 
example  of  this  type  in  bronze  in  the  Museum  at  Innsbruck 
is  shown  PI.  xxxviii,  1.  This  arrangement  induces  lateral 
breadth  in  the  fibula  head  which  becomes  an  important  element 
in  the  subsequent  developments.  The  coils  were  sometimes 
carried  out  on  either  side  to  a  considerable  distance  and  they 
then  needed  a  support  in  the  form  of  a  central  axis  round 
which  they  were  twisted,  while  to  finish  this  central  axis  and 
to  prevent  the  coils  slipping  off"  it,  it  was  terminated  at  both 
ends  by  projecting  knobs.  Another  important  change  was 
now  made,  when  the  fibula  was  no  longer  fashioned  in  one 
piece,  like  the  Innsbruck  example,  but  the  pin  with  the  spiral 
coils  on  their  axis  was  separated  from  the  bow  and  fastened  to 
it  afterwards  by  attachments.  There  now  arises  the  necessity 
for  fixing  the  spiral  coil  so  that  it  shall  not  rotate  bodily  when 
the  pin  is  moved  but  merely  yield  so  far  as  the  elasticity 
of  the  spring  allows.  The  fixing  is 
secured  by  means  of  that  part  of  the 
wire  which  crosses  from  one  end  of  the 
coil  to  the  other,  and  this  is  sometimes 
caught  by  a  sort  of  hook  that  projects 
from  the  top  part  of  the  bow  where 
the  coil  is  attached  to  it.  Fig.  11, 
which  is  a  view  end-on  of  a  fibula  thus 
constituted,  will  explain  what  is  meant.  Fig.  11.— Head  of  a  Fibula. 
Here  the  wire  is  coiled  round  an  axis 

which  ends  in  two  small  knobs  and  this  axis  is  passed  through 
an  aperture  in  a  tongue,  which  projects  from  the  under  side  of 


252  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

the  head  of  the  bow,  and  revolves  in  this  as  in  a  hinge.1  The 
coil  starts  from  the  centre  at  a  point  somewhere  about  A  and 
is  coiled  round  the  axis  till  it  reaches  the  point  B  from  which 
it  is  returned  across  the  centre  to  a  point  C,  from  which  it  is 
coiled  inwards  till  it  reaches  the  centre  again  whence  it  projects 
downwards  to  form  the  pin.  D  is  a  sort  of  hook  at  the 
termination  of  the  bow  and  this  is  caught  round  the  wire  as  it 
crosses  laterally  along  the  upper  surface  of  the  coil,  so  that 
when  the  pin  is  pressed  downwards  the  whole  coil  is  prevented 
from  revolving  and  the  spring  is  through  this  resistance 
brought  into  action.  It  can  easily  be  understood  that  the 
hook  D,  so  conspicuously  placed,  may  be  treated  decoratively 
and  become  a  sort  of  third  knob. 

In  the  hands  of  the  Roman  provincial  craftsmen  of  the 
pre-migration  period  this  construction  was  simplified  and  the 
spiral  spring  was  omitted,  the  pin  being  simply  hinged  below 
the  head  of  the  bow  like  the  pin  of  a  modern  brooch.  The 
influence  of  the  development  of  the  coil  just  noticed  still  how- 
ever remains  in  the  form  of  a  cross  bar  giving  a  T  shape  to 
the  whole  piece,  and  also  in  that  of  a  projection  at  the  end  of 
the  bow  that  owes  its  origin  to  the  hook  the  use  of  which  has 
just  been  explained.  In  this  way  was  produced  the  familiar 
late-Roman  '  cross-bow '  fibula,  that  comes  to  light  at  times 
in  Germanic  as  well  as  in  Roman  graves.  One  was  found  at 
Crundale,  Kent,  that  is  Roman  but  was  associated  with  Jutish 
burials,  and  PI.  xxxviii,  2,  a  characteristic  specimen,  is  from 
Trieste.  Fine  examples  in  gold  have  been  discovered  in 
Germanic  graves  abroad,  the  most  notable  one,  now  lost, 
making  its  appearance  in  the  tomb  of  Childeric,  but  our  Anglo- 
Saxon  tombs  have  not  yielded  anything  of  the  kind. 

This  plan  of  dispensing  with  the  spiral  did  not  however 

commend  itself  to  the  Teutonic  craftsman,  who  now  in  IV  a.d. 

appears  upon  the  scene.     It  must  be  understood  that  by  this 

time   the   primitive  technique  in  which  the   whole   piece  was 

1  The  arrangement  is  shown  in  No.  5  on  PI.  xxxvm. 


LONG  FIBULAE  IN  SHEET  METAL  253 

hammered  out  of  a  single  length  of  wire  had  been  given  up, 
and  the  fibula  was  generally  made  by  the  process  of  casting, 
though  the  old  tradition  still  affects  the  form,  and  both  the 
Innsbruck  fibula,  PL  xxxvin,  1,  and  the  Roman  cross-bow 
one,  No.  2,  still  retain  a  bar-like  form  which  is  reminiscent  of 
the  shape  produced  by  the  earlier  method.  The  characteristic 
early  Germanic  fibula  however  is  no  longer  bar-shaped  but 
treats  the  head,  the  bow,  and  the  foot  in  a  fashion  quite  inde- 
pendent of  their  traditional  origin.  There  is  indeed  a  type 
belonging  to  the  early  period  of  the  migrations  and  common 
in  southern  Russia,  but  not  represented  in  Anglo-Saxon  graves, 
in  which  the  whole  piece,  in  one  or  in  several  parts,  is  cut  out 
in  sheet  silver,  the  bow  being  suitably  strengthened  or  added 
in  another  piece,  and  the  mechanism  of  pin,  hinge,  catch,  etc.,. 
being  attached  to  the  under  side.  Silver  fibulae  of  this  kind  or 
imitations  in  bronze  have  been  found  so  near  our  own  shores 
as  Marchelepot  (Somme)  and  Envermeu  in  Normandy,  and  a 
specimen  from  the  latter  place  in  Rouen  Museum  is  added  for 
purposes  of  comparison,  PI.  xxxix,  5.  We  note  that  for  the 
sake  of  strength  the  foot  is  sloped  on  each  side  of  a  median 
line.  Two  groups  of  early  Germanic  fibulae  of  the  safety  pin 
type  but  quite  freely  treated  are  (1)  those  found  at  Sackrau 
near  Breslau  and  preserved  at  the  Museum  of  the  latter  place, 
that  may  date  from  the  early  part  of  IV  a.d.,  and  (2)  the 
fibulae  from  the  second  find  at  Szilagy  Somlyo  in  Hungary, 
in  the  Museum  at  Budapest.  The  latter,  which  are  of  special 
importance  as  representing  inlaid  gold  jewellery,  are  discussed 
in  that  connection  on  a  later  page  and  are  figured  on  PI.  cxliv 
(p.  529).  They  date  from  the  latter  part  of  IV  or,  as  Pro- 
fessor Hampel  thought,  from  early  in  V.  The  beautiful  gilded 
silver  fibulae  from  Sackrau  are  shown  on  PI.  xxxvin,  3  to  5. 
Here  we  see  the  Teutonic  craftsman,  perhaps  of  the  Vandal 
stock,  not  only  retaining  the  spirals  but  making  two  and  even 
three  rows  of  them.  As  these,  or  at  any  rate  the  two  of  them,1 
1  The  third  rows  in  PI.  xxxvin,  3,  are  purely  decorative. 

4 


254  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

are  genuine  spirals  connected  together  and  both  coiled  out  of 
the  same  length  of  wire,  they  naturally  needed  a  sort  of  frame- 
work for  their  support,  the  projecting  bars  of  which  were 
furnished  at  their  ends  with  knobs.  At  Sackrau  this  com- 
plicated arrangement  is  allowed  to  be  pretty  well  in  evidence 
from  the  front  view,  but  contemporary  Germanic  craftsmen 
seem  to  have  preferred  it  hidden,  and  this  led  to  the  device  so 
well  represented  on  Pll.  xxxiv  and  cxliv  of  covering  plates, 
behind  which  the  spiral  coils  were  concealed,  though  the  pro- 
jecting knobs  might  be  allowed  to  peep  out  beyond  the  edges 
of  the  plate.  Normally  this  plate  took  either  a  rectangular 
form  or  a  semicircular  one,  though  the  pair  in  the  middle  of 
the  uppermost  row  on  PL  cxliv  exhibit  a  compromise  in  the 
form  of  a  step-like  outline. 

As  regards  the  forms  of  the  head  plate,  if  this  were  devised 
merely  for  the  covering  of  the  coils  a  rectangular  shape  would 
be  the  natural  one,  and  the  semicircular  outline  would  seem 
to  demand  some  special  explanation.  This  has  been  provided 
in  the  suggestion  that  previous  provincial-Roman  forms  may 
here  have  exercised  an  influence.  Dr.  Salin1  has  noted  the 
appearance  of  a  round  head  of  modest  development  on  some 
fibulae  of  this  kind,  of  III,  and  it  is  noteworthy  that  there  was 
found  at  Basset  Down,  Wilts,  together  with  some  Anglo-Saxon 
objects  of  fairly  early  date  and  a  spoon  of  Roman  style,  a  small 
bronze  gilt  fibula  with  a  round  head  of  a  type  earlier  than  the 
characteristic  Teutonic  forms.  This  is  an  example  of  what 
Dr.  Salin  refers  to,  and  the  reader  will  find  it  figured  later  on 
PI.  clv,  12,  14  (p.  563).  Pieces  of  this  kind  may  be  ulti- 
mately responsible  for  the  round  head  of  the  Germanic  fibula. 

This  difference  in  the  shape  of  the  heads  assumes  consider- 
able importance  when  it  is  observed  that  as  a  rule  the  square 
head    belongs  to   the   north  of  Europe,2  whereas    the  semi- 

1  Tbierornamentik,  p.  10. 

2  'Bci  den  nordgermanischen  Volkern  . . .  entstanden  die  spater  allgemein 
beliebten  Fibeln  mit  rechteckiger  Kopfplatte.'    Salin,  Tbierornamentik,  p.  77. 


XXXIX 


MISCELLANEOUS  ROUND  AND  SQUARE  HEADED  FIBULAE 


Approximately  the  natural  sizes 
j,  6,  y,  are  Continental 


THE  RADIATING  FIBULA  255 

circular  one  is  rather  Gothic,  South  German  and  Frankish  in 
its  affinities. 

We  have  now  at  any  rate  come  to  understand  the  origin 
and  original  significance  of  the  knobs  which  project  beyond 
the  outline  of  the  semicircular  and  rectangular  plates  that  form 
the  heads  of  so  many  of  our  Anglo-Saxon  fibulae.  On  the 
Bifrons  plates  the  semicircular  head  is  represented  by  PI.  xxxv, 
Nos.  1  to  4  and  6  to  8.  There  are  three  knobs  in  Nos.  3,  6,  7 
and  8,  five  in  Nos.  1  and  4,  while  there  were  only  two  in  No.  2, 
and  these  are  no  longer  mere  knobs  but  have  been  turned  into 
the  heads  of  birds  with  hooked  beaks.  Reasons  will  be  given 
(p.  526)  for  regarding  this  bird-beak  motive  as  of  Gothic 
origin,  and  examples  will  be  given  showing  the  decorative  use 
of  the  projecting  head  on  various  objects  especially  of  South 
German  and  Gothic  provenance.  The  remarkable  piece 
PI.  xxxix,  1,  found  in  1906  at  Market  Overton,  Rutland,  is 
of  a  pronounced  South  German  type l  and  its  appearance  in  the 
English  Midlands  is  a  phenomenon.  Here  the  eye  and  the 
beak  are  quite  unmistakable  and  serve  to  explain  the  Bifrons 
fibula  PI.  xxxv,  2,  where  the  degradation  of  the  motive  has 
gone  so  far  that  the  eye  is  out  of  its  proper  place.  This  piece, 
PI.  xxxv,  2,  is  accordingly  a  degenerate  example  of  a  Gothic 
and  South  German  type,  and  it  is  a  stranger  in  Kent,  though 
not  so  strange  there  as  in  the  Midlands. 

The  Bifrons  fibulae,  PI.  xxxv,  3,  6,  7,  8,  are  of  the  three- 
knobbed  type  which  as  Dr.  Salin  remarks2  is  on  the  whole 
comparatively  rare  but  is  represented  sporadically  by  examples 
all  over  the  Teutonic  region.  No.  7  is  of  importance  because 
of  its  resemblance  to  a  similar  fibula  found  at  Chessell  Down 
in  the  Isle  of  Wight,3  which  is  one  link  of  connection  between 
the  Jutes  of  Kent  and  the  supposed  Jutish  population  of  the 

1  For  South  German  parallels  see  Hampel,  Alterth'utner  in  Ungarn,  in, 
Taf.  56,  58.  He  ascribes  Taf.  56,  8  with  a  head  like  the  Market  Overton 
piece  to  VI  ;  Taf.  58,  1,  where  the  foot  wears  the  likeness,  to  VII  or  VIII. 

2  Tbierornamentik,  p.  24.  3  Hillier,  Isle  of  Wight,  p.  26. 


256  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

Isle,  while  a  third  was  found  at  Harnham  Hill,  Wilts.1  The 
f  radiating '  or  digitated  fibulae  with  five  knobs  and  a  straight 
foot,  Nos.  i,  4,  belong  to  a  class  very  numerously  represented 
among  the  Franks  and  in  southern  Germany,  sparingly  in 
Italy,  Austria-Hungary  and  southern  Russia,  and  very  slighdy 
in  northern  Germany  and  Scandinavia.2  In  England  about 
thirty  examples  are  known,  four  at  Bifrons  and  about  ten  others 
in  different  parts  of  Kent,  one  in  Essex,  a  head  at  Chessell 
Down  in  the  Isle  of  Wight  and  a  foot  end  near  Droxford, 
Hants,  two  or  three  in  Warwickshire,  one  in  Cambridgeshire, 
one  in  Suffolk,  one  at  Searby  in  Lincolnshire,3  two  at  Sleaford, 
Lincolnshire,4  three  at  Woodstone,  Hunts,5  and  one  furthest 
north  of  all  at  Kilham  in  East  Yorkshire.  The  probability  is 
that  these  are  all  importations  from  the  Continent,  as  they  are 
very  common  in  France,  where  they  occur  in  the  same  forms  as 
with  ourselves,  especially  with  the  characteristic  square  end  which 
is  there  almost  though  not  altogether  universal.6  They  represent 
an  early  type  dating  about  V.  Some  of  ours,  like  PI.  xxxv,  1 ,  4, 
are  neat  and  sharply  cut  and  may  be  V  work.  Others  are  coarser 
and  more  florid,  such  as  the  Kentish  specimen  in  Lord  Grantley's 
collection,  PL  xxxix,  3,  where  the  clumsy  knobs  have  been 
increased  in  number  to  seven,  and  these  are  probably  later. 

It  will  be  convenient  to  take  next  the  square  headed  fibula, 
the  Bifrons  examples  of  which  are  on  PI.  xxxiv,  and  for  the 
moment  only  the  ornate  kind  Nos.  1  to  5  and  7  need  be  noticed. 

The  square  head-plate  as  we  have  seen  already  was  de- 
veloped, probably  directly,  for  the  purpose  of  hiding  the 
apparatus  of  the  coiled  spirals,  and  as  a  fact  the  knobs  or 

1  Archaeologia,  xxxv,  pi.  xn,  5.     The  three  are  shown  Fig.  21  (p.  620). 

2  There  is  one  in  the  Museum  at  Leeuwarden  in  Friesland,  PI.  xxxix,  7, 
and  a  portion  of  one  in  the  Museum  at  Kiel  is  shown  PI.  xxxix,  6.  Dr.  Salin 
figures  some  in  his  Ch.  11. 

8  Coll.  Ant.,  v,  137.  4  Archaeologia,  l,  400. 

5  Ass.,  N.S.,  v,  1899,  p.  346. 

6  Boulanger,  Marchelepot,  57. 


THE  SQUARE  HEADED  FIBULA  257 

degenerate  offsprings  of  them  often  make  their  appearance  as 
projections  from  the  plate.  PI.  xxxix,  2,  a  coarsely  wrought 
piece  from  Kent  in  Lord  Grantley's  collection,  is  a  good 
example.  More  commonly  the  original  knobs  have  coalesced 
into  a  sort  of  border,  either  formed  of  separate  units  that  are 
reminiscent  of  the  knobs,  as  in  the  example  from  Barrington, 
Cambs,  in  the  Evans  collection  at  Oxford  PI.  xxxix,  4,  or  of 
continuous  patterns  like  that  round  the  head  of  the  fine  Bifrons 
example  PI.  xxxiv,  7.  In  many  examples,  as  in  some  on 
PI.  xxxiv,  the  plate  has  no  ornamental  border.  PI.  xxxiv,  5,  7, 
exhibit  a  peculiarity  observable  in  many  Scandinavian  examples 
in  the  adornment  of  the  bow  by  an  ornamental  plaque,  in  these 
cases  representing  a  human  full-face.  Dr.  Salin  considers  this 
a  kind  of  freak  of  fancy  without  typological  significance. 
See  his  Thierornamenlik,  p.  44. 

With  regard  to  the  form  of  the  feet,  in  the  case  of 
PI.  xxxiv,  1,  2,  4,  a  sort  of  cross  in  relief  is  the  prominent 
feature,  occurring  in  England,  especially  in  Kent,  and  also  in 
France  whence  came  specimens  to  the  Pierpont  Morgan 
collection.1  This  cross  is  certainly  devoid  of  Christian  sig- 
nificance, for  PI.  xxxiv,  1,  is  quite  an  early  piece,  that  from 
associated  finds  may  be  dated  about  500  a.d.  No.  2  will  be 
rather  later  as  it  has  garnet  inlays  which  become  more  common 
on  still  later  specimens,  such  as  No.  4,  that  may  belong  to 
the  middle  of  VI,  for  it  was  found  with  No.  7  to  which  this 
date  is  assigned  (p.  325  f).  Another  form  of  foot,  Nos.  5,  7, 
exhibits  a  diamond-shaped  motive,  and  the  lowest  and  two 
lateral  corners  of  the  diamond  are  marked  with  plaques,  which 
in  some  examples  to  be  shown  on  subsequent  plates  are  very 
considerably  developed.  A  noteworthy  feature  occurs  where 
the  diamond-shaped  foot  joins  the  bow.  Here  we  observe 
animals'  heads  projecting  from  the  base  of  the  bow  and 
directed  downwards  to  join  the  bow  to  the  foot  by  the  ad- 
ditional material  required  by  the  construction  in  this  place. 
1  Gallo-Roman  Antiquities,  plate  iv. 
Ill  R 


258  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

The  small  round-headed  fibula,  PL  xxxv,  3,  shows  these  heads 
very  clearly.  The  morphology  of  the  square  headed  fibula  is 
however  not  so  interesting  as  is  its  ornamentation,  and  any 
further  discussion  of  it  must  be  deferred  till  the  next  chapter. 
These  small  but  ornate  and  well-executed  pieces,  like  PL  xxxiv, 
1,  2,  5,  belong  specially  to  Kent  and  the  Isle  of  Wight. 

Attention  must  be  given  now  to  another  class  of  the  Bifrons 
fibulae,  those  called  '  cruciform,'  PL  xxxv,  5,  10,  12,  and 
Pll.  xl  to  xlv.  This  class  is  one  of  great  importance  both  in 
relation  to  chronology  and  through  the  fact  that  it  establishes 
a  close  link  of  connection  between  our  own  country  and  parts 
of  those  northern  regions  that  were  the  cradle  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race. 

The  genesis  of  this  form  of  fibula  has  been  a  good  deal 
discussed,  some  writers  affiliating  it  to  the  Roman  '  cross-bow ' 
fibula  of  IV,  see  PL  xxxvin,  2,  and  others  giving  it  a  derivation 
of  its  own  from  a  kind  of  fibula  represented  in  southern  Russia 
about  11  a.d.  In  discussing  a  few  pages  back  the  history  of 
the  safety  pin  type  in  pre-Teutonic  days  attention  was  only 
given  to  the  head.  The  formation  of  the  catch  for  the  pin  at 
the  foot  of  the  fibula  offers  a  study  in  typological  development 
similar  to  that  presented  by  the  head.  In  fibulae  of  which 
PL  xxxvin,  1,  is  an  example,  the  end  of  the  foot  beyond  where 
the  actual  catch  was  formed  is  carried  further  forward  and  ends 
in  a  kind  of  decorative  flourish  that  carries  it  up  to  the  bow  to 
which  it  is  attached.  This  is  an  arrangement  common  in  the 
La  Tene  period  prior  to  the  Christian  era.  At  a  later  time, 
about  1 1  a.d.,  it  became  the  fashion  to  turn  this  loose  end  of  the 
foot  beyond  the  catch  not  forward  but  towards  the  back  and  to 
bring  it  up  underneath  the  bow  to  which  it  was  then  as  in  the 
former  arrangement  attached.  This  constitutes  the  type  of 
fibula  with  '  returned  foot '  or  as  the  German  writers  say  f  mit 
umgeschlagenem  Fuss.'  A  simple  example  of  the  type,  from 
S.  Russia  in  the  Antiquarium,  Berlin,  is  shown  PL  xl,  i.  In 
later  fibulae  traces  of  this  primitive  arrangement  are  often 


XL 


facing  p.  259 


EARLY  CRUCIFORM  FIBULAE 


/,  2,  J,  7,  are  Continental 


THE  CRUCIFORM  FIBULA  259 

visible  in  the  form  of  an  ornamental  collar  round  the  bottom 
of  the  bow  where  it  runs  off  into  the  foot,  reminiscent  of  the 
coil  which  attaches  the  returned  end  of  the  foot  to  the 
bow.  This  is  seen  for  instance  in  the  fibulae  from  Sackrau, 
PL  xxxviii,  3  to  5.  In  the  primitive  examples,  like  PI.  xl,  i, 
there  is  an  open  space  between  the  upper  line  of  the  foot  and 
the  lower  part  of  it  where  it  has  been  turned  back,  and  traces 
of  this  opening  remain  in  later  fibulae  where  most  of  it  has 
been  closed  up. 

This  construction  of  the  foot  might  of  course  co-exist  with 
any  kind  of  formation  of  the  head,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  in 
IV  and  early  V  a  kind  of  fibula  was  in  use  over  part  of  the 


Fig.  12. — Fibula  from  Borgstedt,  Schleswig. 
v 

Germanic  area  that  combined  this  arrangement  with  a  slender 
body  and  narrow  head,  and  this  kind  of  brooch  was  well  in 
evidence  in  Schleswig-Holstein  and  on  the  Lower  Elbe  in  the 
period  before  the  migrations  from  those  regions  to  England. 
It  is  the  prevailing  theory  that  it  was  from  fibulae  of  this  kind, 
which  seem  to  have  been  carried  up  to  this  region  from 
southern  Russia,  rather  than  from  the  Roman  cross-bow  type, 
that  the  cruciform  fibula  was  evolved.  The  fact  that  early 
cruciform  fibulae  are  narrow  at  the  head  while  the  Roman  ones 
run  pronouncedly  to  width  is  in  favour  of  the  prevailing  view. 
Fig.  12  is  a  sketch  of  a  fibula  of  this  kind  from  Borgstedt  in 
Schleswig,1  where  will  be  seen  the  '  returned  foot,'  and  a  narrow 
bow  of  full  curve  ending  at  the  top  with  a  knob,  below  which 

1  Mestorf,  Vorgeschichtliche  Alterthiimer  aus  Schleswig-Holstein,  Hamburg, 
1885,  No.  584. 


260  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

originally  worked  the  pin  hinged  with  the  usual  spiral  coil  that 
terminated  at  each  end  with  a  lateral  knob.  The  construction 
of  the  returned  foot  still  in  evidence  here  becomes  less  apparent 
when  the  whole  piece  comes  to  be  cast,  and  a  catch  is  merely 
adjusted  under  the  foot  now  cast  solid.  The  result  is  a  fibula 
like  that  on  PI.  xl,  2,  from  a  Holstein  cemetery  of  about 
400  a.d.  in  the  Museum  at  Kiel,  showing  the  three  knobs 
forming  the  termination  above  of  a  long  slender  piece,  quite 
different  in  aspect  from  the  sturdy  Roman  cross-bow  fibula 
though  possessing  elements  in  common  with  this. 

The  next  stage  in  the  development  of  this  form  of  fibula 
is  seen  in  the  piece  beside  it,  No.  3,  also  at  Kiel.  The  most 
important  change  is  in  the  foot  which  now  ends  in  an  animal's 
head,  but  this  will  be  noticed  later.  In  the  matter  of  the  head 
the  change  is  in  the  direction  of  the  evolution  of  a  distinct 
head  plate  covering  the  middle  part  of  the  coil  and  intervening 
between  the  top  of  the  bow  and  the  knob  which  terminates 
the  whole  piece.  By  being  marked  with  a  St.  Andrew's  Cross 
the  plate  already  proclaims  itself  a  constituent  portion  of  the 
whole.  The  further  history  of  the  type  is  concerned  chiefly 
with  the  enlargement  and  treatment  of  this  square  head-plate 
and  the  relations  between  it  and  the  coil  with  its  knobs  below. 
This  history  has  been  worked  out  in  an  elaborate  little  treatise 
by  Dr.  Haakon  Schetelig  of  the  Bergen  Museum  in  Norway,1 
which  has  established  for  our  present  state  of  knowledge  the 
chronology  of  the  various  forms  involved.  The  origin  of  the 
special  type  is  claimed  for  the  Lower  Elbe  region  and  Schleswig, 
but  the  development  is  worked  out  in  Denmark,  Norway  and 
Sweden,  and  England,  and  the  relations  among  the  forms 
found  in  the  three  countries  are  set  forth  with  great  lucidity 
and  convincingness  in  the  treatise.  To  put  the  matter  briefly, 
when  the  head-plate  has  assumed  a  certain  size  the  knobs  at 
the  ends  of  the  coil  become  in  different  ways  attached  to  it, 
and  at  a  later  stage,  having  become  in  this  way  intimately 
1    The  Cruciform  Brooches  of  Norway,  Bergens  Museums  Aarbog,  1906. 


XLI 

facing  p.  261 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  ENGLISH  CRUCIFORM  FIBULAE 


1,  2,  4,  6,  a  little  reduced  ;  5,  considerably  reduced 


EARLY  CRUCIFORM  FIBULAE  261 

associated  with  the  plate,  they  end  by  losing  their  connection 
with  the  coil  altogether  and  are  cast  in  one  piece  with  the  plate 
to  which  they  become  merely  ornamental  appendages.  The 
type  originated  in  IV  for  specimens  like  Fig.  12  were  found 
in  the  Nydam  moss  in  Schleswig.  It  was  carried  through  its 
main  typological  changes  in  the  course  of  V  and  lasted  on  in 
use  at  any  rate  in  England  to  the  latter  part  of  VI  and  even 
into  VII.  It  is  noteworthy  that  all  through  V  in  Denmark 
and  in  England  it  was  usual  for  the  side  knobs  still  to  belong 
essentially  to  the  coil  and  only  to  be  attached  as  separate 
pieces  to  the  head  plate  as  is  the  case  with  all  the  fibulae  on 
PI.  xli,  while  in  Norway  and  Sweden  they  were  already  cast  in 
the  same  piece  with  the  head  plate.  In  VI  this  casting  in  one 
piece  was  universal  and  an  example  is  seen  on  PL  xliv.  It 
follows  that  cruciform  fibulae  found  in  England  with  detached 
side  knobs  may  as  a  rule  be  put  down  to  a  date  somewhere 
about  500  a.d.,  while  those  with  side  knobs  cast  on  to  the  plate, 
and,  a  fortiori,  later  developments  that  proceed  with  decorative 
manipulations  of  the  side  knobs,  must  be  of  VI  or  even  later. 
PH.  xl,  xli  give  some  specimens  from  England  and  the 
Continent,  the  former  being  designed  to  show  the  distribution 
of  specimens  throughout  the  country  as  well  as  to  give  a 
chronological  series  of  examples.  For  Scandinavian  parallels 
the  illustrations  in  Dr.  Schetelig's  treatise  may  be  referred 
to.  There  has  been  found  in  our  country,  at  Dorchester  in 
Oxfordshire,  PI.  xl,  6,  one  isolated  example  of  the  prototype 
of  the  cruciform  fibulae  of  the  pattern  of  Fig.  12  though 
representing  a  stage  in  advance.  The  length  of  it  is  2-|  in. 
and  on  the  Plate  it  is  somewhat  enlarged.  The  terminal  knob 
is  well  preserved  but  the  part  between  the  knob  and  the  bow 
is  not  very  clear.  There  was  certainly  however  no  appreciable 
width  in  the  head  plate.  The  bow  has  the  ample  sweep  of 
the  early  examples  like  Fig.  12.  There  is  no  collar  round 
the  bow  at  the  foot  end  of  it  according  to  the  '  returned  foot ' 
tradition,  but  the  catch  for  the  pin  runs  as  in  early  examples 


262  *  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

the  whole  length  of  the  foot.  A  detail  on  which  there  may- 
be some  difference  of  opinion  is  seen  in  PI.  xl,  6.  There  is 
a  slit-like  opening  in  the  metal  which  suggests  the  space  left 
when  the  foot  is  actually  turned  back  as  in  PI.  xl,  i,  but  it 
might  be  argued  that  this  is  only  due  to  corrosion.  The  end 
of  the  slit  nearest  the  foot  seems  however  so  neatly  finished 
off  that  the  writer  is  convinced  that  the  slit  is  part  of  the 
design,  and  would  of  course  indicate  an  early  date.  The 
piece  could  not  be  put  later  than  about  400  a.d.  Among 
the  true  cruciform  fibulae  in  this  country  one  of  the  earliest 
must  be  the  small  specimen  found  in  Suffolk  and  now  in  the 
Norwich  Museum,  Fitch  Collection  No.  624,  PI.  xl,  4.  It 
is  marked  by  the  slenderness  and  elongation  of  the  foot 
observable  in  the  early  example  from  Kiel  PL  xl,  2,  but  in 
this  case  there  is  a  distinct  indication  of  what  becomes  later 
on  the  well-known  c  horse's  head.'  A  similar  example  No.  5 
comes  from  early  burials  near  Holme  Pierrepont  or  Cotgrave, 
Notts.  Though  the  piece  is  broader  in  the  upper  part,  the 
horse's  head  is  still  small  and  uncertain.  It  is  3^  in.  long. 
As  an  ornamental  motive  this  head  will  have  presently  to  be 
discussed ;  here  we  are  only  concerned  with  its  typological 
changes.  In  PL  xl,  7,  at  Hanover,  from  Midlum,  Kreis 
Lehe,  a  Lower  Elbe  piece,  the  horse's  head  is  modelled  in  very 
definite  fashion  while  the  catch  occupies  the  whole  length  of 
the  extended  foot,  and  the  head  is  very  narrow.  The  earliest 
specimen  Dr.  Schetelig  figured  among  English  finds  is  the  ex- 
ample in  Rugby  Museum,  3^  in.  long,  shown  in  front  and  back 
view  PI.  xli,  1.  This  is  not  yet  of  that  broader  and  stouter 
build  which  becomes  characteristic  of  English  examples  but 
attention  is  already  being  paid  to  the  horse's  nostrils,  which 
our  craftsmen  mishandled  later  on  in  somewhat  weird  fashion. 
In  this  particular  detail  there  is  a  difference  between  English 
and  Scandinavian  examples.  With  us  the  nostrils  are,  in 
these  early  specimens  with  the  detached  knobs,  represented 
by  depressed   hemispheres  attached  like  wings  on  each  side  of 


LATER  CRUCIFORM  FIBULAE  263 

the  animal's  muzzle,  as  in  No.  6  on  PI.  xli.  In  Norway  on 
the  other  hand  they  are  as  a  rule  fashioned  like  distinct  pro- 
jecting buttons.  The  beautiful  brooch,  PL  xli,  2,  nearly 
4  in.  long  and  finely  chased,  from  Malton  Farm,  Cambs,  in 
the  Ashmolean  Museum,  is  regarded  by  Mr.  Thurlow  Leeds 
who  published  it  in  Archaeologia,  Vol.  lxiii,  as  probably  an 
importation  from  Denmark.  It  has  the  peculiarity  that  the 
knob  at  the  top  which  is  generally  cast  on  one  piece  with 
the  head  is  here  split  and  the  head  is  inserted  into  it.  The 
grooves  across  the  split  tang  are  by  some  considered  reminis- 
cent of  the  worm  of  a  screw  that  occurs  on  the  knobs  of  some 
Roman  brooches  which  are  fixed  by  this  method  in  their  places. 
The  method  by  which  the  side  knobs  are  attached  to  the 
plate  can  be  seen  in  No.  3  from  Sancton,  Yorks,  where  the 
groove  in  the  knob  into  which  the  edge  of  the  plate  enters 
is  visible  in  the  front  view,  and  the  arrangement  at  the  back 
where  the  rusted  remains  of  the  coil  are  commonly  apparent  is 
given  in  No.  4,  which  shows  the  back  and  front  view  of  a 
fibula  3§  in.  long  found  recently  at  Corbridge,  Northumber- 
land. In  almost  all  these  examples  it  will  be  noticed  that  the 
edges  of  the  sides  of  the  plate  are  sharpened  so  as  to  enter 
into  the  notches  in  the  lateral  knobs.  There  is  thus  a  thicker 
middle  part  to  the  plate  and  thinner  sides,  and  this  is  apparent  in 
the  front  view  of  most  of  the  examples  on  the  Plate.  We  note 
that  in  the  example  from  East  ShefFord,  Berks,  PL  xli,  6,  3^  in. 
long,  the  side  knobs  have  no  grooves  and  merely  abut  on  the 
edges  of  the  plate.  This  is  quite  exceptional.  Furthermore,  in 
order  to  give  room  behind  for  the  coil,  the  whole  plate  is  bent 
into  a  curve  from  side  to  side  so  that  a  concavity  is  formed  at 
the  back.     The  Corbridge  example,  No.  4,  shows  this. 

Plates  xliii,  xliv  and  xlv  are  arranged  to  show  the  later 
development  in  England  of  this  form  of  brooch,  in  the  course 
of  which  it  will  be  seen  to  blend  in  some  of  its  details  with 
the  square  headed  type,  and  to  blossom  out  into  some  very 
characteristic  pieces  of  a  florid  kind  that  are  practically  without 


264  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

parallel  in  continental  collections.  The  head  is  in  all  these 
later  examples  cast  with  the  side  knobs  as  well  as  the  top 
one  in  the  same  piece,  and  in  other  respects  it  exhibits  modi- 
fications which  have  begun  in  the  earlier  examples.  Already 
in  some  of  these  early  examples,  dating  from  not  later  than 
about  500  a.d.,  such  as  those  from  Corbridge,  PI.  xli,  4, 
the  head  plate  is  getting  very  broad  and  the  further  develop- 
ment proceeds  in  this  direction,  so  that  the  later  and  more  florid 
specimens  have  a  flat  spread-out  look  which  Haakon  Schetelig 
notes  as  characteristically  English,  and  as  offering  a  contrast 
with  the  Norwegian  brooches  in  which  a  plastic  feeling  for  relief 
and  boldly  accented  forms  are  specially  to  be  remarked. 

Before  following  however  the  main  line  of  this  later 
development,  it  will  be  well  to  introduce  a  notice  of  some 
minor  modifications  of  the  head  which  will  explain  the 
genesis  of  sundry  small  brooches  with  '  trefoil '  heads,  heads 
curiously  indented,  and  heads  which  are  perfectly  square  and 
plain,  some  of  which  are  illustrated  on  the  Bifrons  Plates 
xxxiv  and  xxxv  and  on  PI.  xxxvn,  Nos.  8,  9,  10.  It  will 
be  noticed  that  in  these  the  horse's  head  no  longer  appears, 
and  in  many  cases  the  foot  is  spread  out  at  the  end  into 
a  fan-like  form,  which  is  specially  characteristic  of  fibulae 
found  in  East  Prussia  but  which  Dr.  Schetelig  thinks  1  may 
be  simply  'a  Teutonic  transformation  of  the  rather  broad 
foot  seen  on  Roman  brooches '  of  the  cross-bow  type,  as 
PI.  xxxviii,  2.  In  this  connection  it  may  be  noted  that  in 
some  French  examples  of  the  '  radiating '  brooch  the  square- 
ended  shank  of  Roman  derivation  broadens  out,  though 
only  slightly,  as  it  descends.  These  pieces  are  instructive 
as  showing  that  besides  development  in  a  main  line  through 
a  long  series  of  comparatively  slight  typological  changes 
there  might  exist  as  it  were  short  cuts  by  which  a  great 
extent  of  ground  was  covered  at  a  single  leap.  The  class 
of  small  brooches  now  under  consideration,  for  which  the 
1  Cruciform  Brooches  of  Norway,  p.  91. 


XLII 

facing  p.  265 


FORMS  DERIVED  FROM  CRUCIFORM  FIBULAE 


4  is  slightly  below  natural  size 
2,  3,  are  Continental 


SMALL  LONG  BROOCHES  265 

name  '  small  long  brooches '  may  be  found  suitable,  is  specially 
characteristic  of  England,  but  the  origin  of  them  seems  to 
be  sought  in  Schleswig,  where  they  occur  in  the  cemetery 
of  Borgstedt  the  date  of  which  is  rather  earlier  than  that  of 
the  Teutonic  settlement  in  England.  PI.  xlii,  2,  3,  are  two 
Schleswig  specimens,  and  references  have  just  been  given 
to  the  illustrations  of  some  English  ones.  The  trefoil  headed 
fibula,  a  specially  English  form  represented  as  we  have  seen 
in  all  parts  of  our  country,  is  considered  by  Dr.  Salin *  to  be  de- 
rived from  a  three-knobbed  cruciform  brooch  by  the  summary 
process  of  flattening  out  the  knobs,  and  in  like  manner  the 
Schleswig  specimens,  PI.  xlii,  2,  3,  may  have  come  from 
a  cruciform  fibula  with — what  occurs  very  exceptionally — 
square  knobs.  On  the  other  hand,  an  example  like  that 
from  near  Blaby,  Leicestershire,  in  the  Museum  at  Leicester, 
PI.  xli,  5,  would  suggest  that  the  simple  omission  of  the 
knobs,  and  a  fanciful  manipulation  of  the  side  plates  which 
seems  to  be  here  in  progress,  might  lead  to  the  same  result. 
Dr.  Schetelig  is  disposed  to  develop  these  types  in  comparative 
independence  of  the  cruciform  brooches,  though  he  admits 
that  the  histories  of  the  two  are  parallel.2  How  closely  con- 
nected however  they  are  we  can  see  from  the  case  of  Kempston, 
Beds,  where  a  large  number  of  small  brooches  of  the  kind 
were  found,  and  are  shown,  as  exhibited  in  the  British 
Museum,  PI.  xlii,  i.  One  of  these,  in  the  middle  of  the 
lowest  row,  is  of  the  normal  cruciform  type  with  a  debased 
horse's  head  foot,  a  second,  above  it  to  the  left,  has  a  three- 
knobbed  head  but  a  triangular  foot.  Two  trefoil  headed 
examples  come  in  the  first  row  and  at  the  end  of  the  second 
row  from  the  top,  while  at  the  left  hand  of  the  lowest  row 
are  two  brooches  with  square  head-plates  curiously  indented  in 
a  way  that  reminds  us  of  the  Kiel  examples  PL  xlii,  2,  3,  and 
the  third  from  the  left  in  the  top  row  of  the  Kempston  series 
would  come  into  line  with  these  but  has  preserved  a  degenerate 
1  Tbierornamentik,  p.  74.  2  Cruciform  Brooches,  I.e. 


266  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

form  of  the  horse's  head  foot.  On  the  Bifrons  Plate  xxxv, 
Nos.  9  and  13  are  similar.  These  Salin  derives  from  the 
Schleswig  example  PI.  xlii,  3,  through  a  gradual  closing  up 
of  the  spaces  between  the  three  flattened-out  heads.  Lastly, 
the  examples  with  plain  square  head-plates,  so  largely  repre- 
sented at  Kempston,  and  also  at  Bifrons,  PI.  xxxiv,  12,  he 
considers  to  show  the  final  extinction  of  the  openings.  One 
might  be  more  inclined  to  derive  the  plain  square  head  directly 
from  the  cruciform  one  by  the  simple  omission  of  the  knobs, 
and  this  is  rendered  likely  by  the  fact  that  some  of  these 
plain  square  heads,  e.g.,  the  first  from  the  left  in  the  top 
and  second  rows  of  the  Kempston  group,  and  the  one  to 
the  right  of  the  three-knobbed  specimen  in  the  lowest  row, 
shown  on  a  larger  scale  PI.  xlii,  4,  have  the  plate  divided  into 
three,  with  the  wings  a  little  set  back  from  the  centre,  and 
this  detail  is  hardly  likely  to  have  survived  through  the 
longer  process  of  derivation  favoured  by  Dr.  Salin.  The 
specimen  at  the  right-hand  end  of  the  bottom  row  is  a  very 
remarkable  piece,  and  this  with  the  one  to  the  left  of  the  three- 
knobbed  one  in  the  bottom  row  possesses  special  features  to 
which  attention  will  presently  be  directed. 

It  is  clear  at  any  rate  that  the  insignificant-looking  little 
brooches  of  this  class  need  not  be  dismissed  as  of  trivial 
importance.  From  their  occurrence  in  Schleswig  and  also, 
as  is  the  case,  in  Hanover,  they  may  be  claimed  as  early 
forms  brought  over  to  this  country  and  developed  here  to 
numerous  varieties,  all  of  which  however  are  affiliated  to  the 
cruciform  type.  It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  in  the  case  of 
the  two  plain  square-headed  brooches,  Nos.  10  and  11  on 
PI.  xxxiv,  we  have  distinct  evidence  of  early  date,  for  they 
came  to  light  in  a  grave  at  Bifrons  the  other  objects  in 
which  must  be  placed  about  the  year  500.1  The  form  of 
these  head  plates  may  easily  have  been  arrived  at  by  the 
summary  process  suggested  in  the  text.  No  one  however 
1  Arcb.  Cant.,  x,  303,  cf.  Victoria  History,  Leicester,  1,  228. 


XLIII 

facing  p.  267 


FEET  OF  CRUCIFORM  FIBULAE 


All  but  6  are  about  natural  size ;  6  is  f  natural  size 


WINGS  AND  HORSE'S-HEAD  FEET  267 

has  yet  made  a  complete  analysis  of  the  forms  of  these 
smaller  and  simpler  fibulae  of  the  '  long '  type,  and  whether 
specimens  like  PI.  xxxiv,  10,  11,  belong  to  the  sub-type 
1  cruciform '  or  '  square  headed '  might  be  a  matter  of 
controversy.  In  what  follows  they  will  be  called  '  small 
long  brooches,'  by  the  name  suggested  above. 

The  derail  in  the  two  Kempston  brooches  in  the  lowest 
row  above  referred  to  is  the  appearance  on  each  side  just 
below  the  bow  of  projecting  wings,  and  this  brings  us  back  to 
the  rather  extensive  subject  of  the  later  development  of  the 
cruciform  brooch  into  varied  and  on  the  whole  florid  forms 
that  are  specially  characteristic  of  England.  The  outcome 
of  this  development  is  a  set  of  large  brooches  handsome  in 
a  superficial  aspect  but  ornamented  in  a  somewhat  debased 
fashion,  that  at  first  sight  resemble  the  more  ornate  square- 
headed  pieces,  such  as  some  on  PI.  xxxiv  and  PH.  lxiv  to  lxvii, 
but  generally  preserve  enough  of  the  traditional  structure  to 
make  their  genesis  unmistakable.  The  wing  appears  at  first 
quite  plain,  as  in  the  fibula  from  Suffolk  in  the  Norwich 
Museum,  PI.  xliii,  2,  where  only  one  side  is  preserved,  but 
we  soon  see  the  wing  taking  the  form  of  an  animal's  head  as 
in  the  example  at  Hull  from  Hornsea,  PI.  xliii,  i,  where  the 
sides  of  the  head  plate  show  marks  where  they  were  inserted 
in  the  grooves  in  the  knobs,  and  its  after  development  is  a 
matter  of  ornament  rather  than  of  morphology.  Changes  in 
the  horse's  head  proceed  in  conjunction  with  this  development 
of  the  wings.  The  early  examples  such  as  PI.  xli,  i,  4,  6, 
dating  from  V  or  early  VI,  show  the  nostrils  treated  simply  in 
the  conventional  fashion  already  indicated,  and  the  heads  on 
the  feet  of  later  brooches,  PI.  xliii,  4,  5,  show  that  this  com- 
paratively severe  treatment  remains  sometimes  in  use  even  in 
fibulae  of  the  more  advanced  kind  with  the  fixed  knobs,  such 
as  is  No.  5,  from  Saxby,  Leicestershire.  In  the  Hornsea  brooch 
at  Hull,  4!  in.  long,  PL  xliii,  3,  there  are  additions  to  the 
hemispheres  above  and  a  prolongation   between  them  in  the 


268  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

form  of  a  little  tongue  which  in  some  examples  is  pierced  with 
a  hole  for  the  attachment  of  a  chain  or  other  fastening.  The 
example  No.  7  on  PI.  xli,  a  Suffolk  brooch  in  Mr.  Fenton's 
collection  in  London,  has  such  a  perforated  prolongation.  It 
is  to  be  noted  also  that  like  some  other  East  Anglian  speci- 
mens it  is  ornamented  with  enamel.  In  the  last-named 
Hornsea  brooch,  PI.  xliii,  3,  the  forehead  of  the  beast  above 
the  eyes  is  divided  in  the  centre  by  a  median  line  that  is  an 
English  peculiarity.  Later  brooches  exhibit  an  enormous 
outgrowth  from  the  lower  part  of  the  muzzle  which  is  treated 
in  a  purely  decorative  fashion  and  becomes  of  greater  import- 
ance than  the  head  itself.  No.  6  on  PI.  xliii,  at  Audley  End, 
from  Little  Wilbraham,  Cambs,  is  remarkable  because  the 
extensions  below  the  nostrils  take  the  form  of  the  birds'  heads 
we  have  come  to  know  in  connection  with  PH.  xxxv,  2  and 
xxxix,  1.  A  fibula  found  at  Londesborough,  in  the  Hull 
Museum,  is  an  excellent  specimen  of  the  advanced  form  of 
the  piece  in  our  own  country.  It  is  figured  on  PL  xliv  to  its 
full  size,  5T5F  in.  in  length,  and  is  remarkable  for  its  look  of 
newness  and  extraordinary  preservation,  as  well  as  for  its  just 
proportions  and  tactful  distribution  of  details.  It  is  almost  as 
perfect  as  when  the  cast  left  the  hands  of  the  chaser.  The 
knobs,  of  a  chaste  and  severe  form  that  occurs  on  early 
examples  as  on  the  Malton  Farm  piece  PI.  xli,  2,  have  an 
additional  feature,  which  becomes  developed  later  on,  of  a  sort 
of  extra  growth  out  of  the  head  of  them.  The  head  plate 
with  the  three  divisions  is  no  longer  strictly  rectangular  but 
its  outline  expands  towards  the  sides.  It  has  a  pattern  of 
diamonds  stamped  on  the  edges  of  the  centre  division.  The 
wings  below  the  bow  show  the  animal's  head,  and  all  this  region 
is  sharply  faceted  and  finished  in  a  most  workmanlike  style. 
The  forehead  of  the  '  horse  '  has  the  median  groove  and  the 
lower  part  of  the  muzzle  is  treated  in  the  later  convention. 
The  flatness  which  Schetelig  notices  as  distinguishing  English 
from   Scandinavian    examples  is  very  apparent,  and   we  have 


XLIV 

facing  p.  268 


CRUCIFORM  FIBULA  FROM  LONDESBOROUGH,  YORKS 


Natural  size 


XLV 

facing  p.  269 


FLORID  CRUCIFORM  BROOCHES  269 

before   us  a   fine   and    very  characteristic   piece   of  Anglian 
bronze  work  of  about  the  middle  of  VI. 

It  would  be  tedious  to  describe  any  of  the  more  florid 
examples  that  exhibit  the  further  elaboration  of  the  motives 
treated  with  some  severity  and  reserve  in  the  Londesborough 
piece.  The  specimens  on  PI.  xlv  speak  for  themselves,  for  in 
each  case  there  is  represented  a  growth  outwards  of  features 
which  in  their  origin  and  simpler  forms  we  have  already  come 
to  know.  With  the  ornamental  motives  employed  we  are  not 
at  the  moment  concerned,  and  these  will  be  returned  to  and 
examined  in  connection  with  the  more  ornate  forms  of  the 
square  headed  fibula,  which  we  shall  see  developing  on  similar 
lines.  It  may  be  briefly  noted  that  Nos.  1  and  4,  the  first  at 
Bury  St.  Edmunds  from  West  Stow  Heath,  Suffolk,  6  in. 
long,  and  the  second  at  Worcester  from  Upton  Snodsbury, 
Worcestershire,  4J  in.  long,  are  specimens  of  the  later  kind  of 
cruciform  brooch  found  in  this  country,  and  Dr.  Schetelig, 
who  figures  two  other  similar  examples  under  his  nos.  131 
and  132,  reckons  them  to  belong  to  the  latter  half  of  VI.  A 
good  deal  of  time  one  would  imagine  must  have  elapsed 
between  the  making  of  the  severe  and  noble  Londesborough 
brooch  and  that  of  a  florid  amorphous  piece  like  No.  4,  and  this 
more  probably  belongs  to  VII.  No.  2  at  Audley  End  from 
Little  Wilbraham,  Cambs,  5  in.  long,  Schetelig  figures  as  his 
no.  130  and  gives  it  approximately  the  same  date  in  VI,  while 
No.  3,  in  Hull  Museum  from  the  recent  find  at  Hornsea, 
4^-  in.  long,  is  a  contemporary  piece  in  which  the  three  knobs, 
still  quite  distinct  in  Nos.  1  and  4,  have  almost  coalesced  into 
a  continuous  border.  The  two  eyes  of  the  three  human  faces 
of  1  and  4  are  still  however  to  be  made  out.  The  horse's 
head,  still  recognizable  in  4  and  in  2,  has  become  a  human 
head  in  1  and  3.  No.  6  is  the  foot  of  a  very  late  fibula  of 
debased  type  similar  to  No.  3  though  still  more  degenerate,  in 
the  Black  Gate  Museum  at  Newcastle-on-Tyne  from  White- 
hill,  Tynemouth,  5f  in.   long.     Lastly  Nos.  5  and  7  are  two 


270  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

very  similar  pieces  of  which  5,  in  the  Evans  Collection  at 
Oxford,  comes  from  Barrington,  Cambs,  and  7,  in  the  Mayer- 
Faussett  Collection  at  Liverpool,  was  found  at  Chesterford  in 
Essex.  The  stiff  square  forms  are  noteworthy,  and  the  square 
pieces  projecting  beyond  the  knobs  are  to  be  signalized x  as  a 
further  development  of  what  we  see  beginning  in  the  Londes- 
borough  brooch  of  PI.  xliv.  The  occurrence  of  such  closely 
related  pieces,  one  in  Essex  and  one  in  Cambridgeshire,  will 
be  noticed  later  on  in  its  historical  significance  (p.  597). 

A  word  must  be  said  about  the  manner  of  wearing  these 
so-called  '  long '  brooches,  whether  of  the  square  headed  or 
the  cruciform  type.  It  was  a  very  common  though  not  a 
universal  practice  to  wear  them  with  what  has  been  called  the 
*  foot '  uppermost,  so  that  the  pin  must  have  been  inserted  in 
the  garment  from  below  upwards.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  on 
Greek  vases,  where  the  tunics  of  female  figures  are  fastened  on 
the  shoulders  with  long  pins,  these  are  often,  though  not  always, 
shown  with  their  points  sticking  up  in  somewhat  aggressive 
fashion.  This  tradition  may  conceivably  have  exercised  an 
influence  that  lasted  till  the  evolution  of  the  long  fibula. 
On  a  late  Roman  ivory  at  Vienna  PI.  xxxm,  3  (p.  243),  a 
figure  of  '  Roma '  is  shown  wearing  a  square  headed  fibula 
foot  upwards,  and  male  figures  on  the  famous  ivory  diptych  at 
Halberstadt  (p.  375  f.)  fasten  their  cloaks  in  the  same  fashion. 
At  Bifrons  cemetery  the  explorers  reported  that  the  position 
of  the  long  brooches  showed  that  they  had  been  worn  in  this 
way.  The  bird  brooch,  PI.  xxxv,  n,  has  the  pin  hinged  at 
the  foot  so  that  when  worn  with  the  head  of  the  creature  in  its 
natural  position  the  pin  would  point  upwards.  It  stands  to 
reason  of  course  that  this  cannot  always  have  been  the  case, 
for  the  design  would  not  admit  of  it  in  instances  where  the 
human  face,  for  example,  was  exhibited.  PI.  xxxiv,  7,  must, 
one  would  think,  have  been  meant  to  be  worn  head  upwards. 
The  fact  here  noticed  as  to  the  placing  of  the  brooches  has 
1  H.  Schetelig,  Cruciform  Brooches,  p.  107. 


XLVI 

facing  p.  271 


PLATE  AND  EQUAL  ARMED  FIBULAE 


/,  2,  7,  8,  Q,  10,  are  Continental 


EQUAL  ARMED  FIBULAE  271 

been  taken  account  of  in  arranging  the  plates,  which  show  the 
objects  in  both  the  possible  positions. 

This  problem  of  the  relations  in  position  of  the  *  head '  and 
the  '  foot '  of  the  fibulae,  when  worn  on  the  figure,  leads  us  by 
an  easy  transition  to  the  so-called  equal  armed  fibula,  about 
which  no  such  question  can  arise.  Some  examples  of  this 
were  shown  PL  xxxvn,  5,  6,  7,  while  two  or  three  continental 
ones  have  been  added  to  PL  xlvi  as  Nos.  7,  8,  9,  and  of  a 
group  from  Stockholm  a  perspective  view  is  given  PL  xlvi,  10. 
These  are  called  by  the  French  c  fibules  ansees '  because  they 
resemble  box  handles  that  could  be  screwed  down  through  the 
two  plates  on  each  side  of  the  central  bow.  In  the  example 
PI.  xxxvn,  7  (p.  247),  the  two  plates  are  set  at  right  angles  to 
the  bow  instead  of  in  a  line  with  it.  This  actual  piece,  from 
Kempston,  Bedfordshire,  is  a  comparatively  degenerate  example 
of  a  limited  class  of  fibulae  practically  confined  to  one  or  two 
localities  in  our  own  country  and  in  the  region  about  the 
Elbe  Mouth  in  Germany,  one  home  of  our  Teutonic  fore- 
fathers. The  type  is  in  this  way  an  important  historical  link 
of  connection  between  earlier  and  later  seats  of  the  English, 
and  was  evidently  brought  over  to  this  country  fully  evolved 
in  the  form  in  which  we  find  it  in  the  Hanoverian  province. 
Earlier  specimens  to  be  noticed  later  on  (p.  561  f.)  probably 
belong  to  V,  and  the  archaeological  evidence  of  their  ornamenta- 
tion corresponds,  for  this  is  of  a  kind  that  belongs  to  IV  and  V, 
when  classical  forms  were  dominant  in  much  of  the  art  of  the 
time.  Few  objects  indeed  among  those  with  which  we  are 
now  dealing  rejoice  in  a  date  so  well  attested  and  so  early. 
The  significance  of  this  fact  will  be  seen  when  we  examine  the 
general  form  of  the  object,  taking  for  the  moment  the  example 
No.  7  on  PL  xxxvn.  Other  examples  of  the  type  are  far  more 
interesting  and  will  occupy  attention  on  a  subsequent  page 
from  the  point  of  view  of  their  enrichment. 

The  first  thing  to  notice  is  that  this  kind  of  equal  armed 
fibula,  in  which  the  head  and  foot  are  set  at  right  angles  to  the 


272  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

bow,  differs  markedly  from  those  in  which  all  three  are  in  a 
line  in  the  fact  that  while  this  as  we  have  just  seen  is  very 
early  the  others  are  correspondingly  late.  The  '  fibule  ansee  ' 
is  so  reckoned  by  the  French  archaeologists,  and  M.  Boulanger 
goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  '  les  fibules  ansees  sont  les  dernieres 
qui  figurent  dans  les  tombes  a  la  fin  du  VIIIe  siecle  et  au 
commencement  du  IXe.' 1  This  is  from  the  point  of  view  of 
morphology  quite  regular.  The  safety  pin  type  of  fibula  we 
have  seen  passing  through  a  long  series  of  modifications 
affecting  both  the  head  and  the  foot,  and  it  is  in  accordance 
with  the  laws  which  govern  these  changes  that  after  a  long 
period  of  time  invention  should  grow  cold,  and  both  head  and 
foot  losing  their  special  significance  should  ultimately  settle 
down  into  characterless  shapes  each  of  which  is  a  copy  of  the 
other.  In  this  way  the  late  '  fibule  ansee  ',  7,  8,  9,  may  easily  be 
explained,  but  the  puzzle  is  that  the  same  sort  of  phenomenon 
should  occur  at  a  date  that  is  comparatively  very  early,  when 
invention  was  in  full  swing  and  head  and  foot  were  being 
treated  in  a  fresh  and  living  fashion.  The  explanation  seems 
to  be  that  the  wide  equal-armed  fibula  does  not  find  its  place 
in  the  normal  scheme  of  development,  but  is  a  copy  of  a 
special  though  rare  form  of  provincial- Roman  fibula  that  bears 
to  it  a  superficial  resemblance.  This  point  is  illustrated  later 
on  (p.  552  f.)  in  connection  with  the  important  early  examples 
of  the  class  that  have  just  been  mentioned. 

It  should  at  the  same  time  be  borne  in  mind  that  out-of- 
the-way  forms  of  the  brooch  are  possible  at  any  time,  for  they 
may  come  under  the  category  i  plate  fibula '  to  which  attention 
will  presently  be  directed.  This  heading  '  plate  fibula,'  it  will 
be  seen,  covers  an  extremely  wide  range,  for  it  was  in  accord- 
ance with  the  rules  of  the  game  to  make  almost  anything  of 
suitable  size  and  shape  into  a  fibula.  No  morphological  laws 
seem  here  to  have  been  in  force.  At  a  very  early  date  in  the 
Teutonic  period  we  see  this  evidenced  in  the  fibulae  from  the 

1  Marcbe/epot,  p.  170. 


FIBULAE  OF  THE  PLATE  TYPE  273 

Treasure  of  Petrossa,  of  IV,  at  Bucharest,  where  fanciful  forms 
such  as  those  that  will  be  found  on  PI.  xlviii,  1,  2  (p.  279), 
make  their  appearance.  No.  1  on  that  plate  is  supposed  to 
represent  an  ibis,  and  may  be  regarded  as  the  prototype  of  the 
'  bird '  fibulae  in  general.  It  is  of  outrageous  size,  nearly 
10  in.  in  height,  but  the  pin  at  the  back  shows  clearly  that  it 
was  a  brooch.  Another  piece,  No.  2,  has  no  specific  form  but 
presents  a  fanciful  composition  freely  invented.  It  is  imprac- 
ticable however  to  regard  the  equal  armed  fibulae  with  which 
we  are  dealing  as  an  invention  of  the  kind,  for  the  distinctive 
bow  in  the  middle  links  them  unmistakably  to  the  fibulae  of 
the  safety  pin  type.  Dr.  Salin  notes  that  these  equal  armed 
brooches  have  as  yet  received  but  little  attention  on  the  part 
of  archaeologists,  and  he  claims  them  as  rather  a  northern 
speciality. 

The  next  group  of  fibulae  to  be  noticed  embraces  all  those 
of  the  'plate'  type,  subdivided  into  'disc,'  'applied,'  'saucer,' 
'  button,'  and  *  bird '  brooches,  with  one  or  two  miscellaneous 
forms  that  may  come  under  this  heading.  The  most  im- 
portant class  of  disc  fibulae  is  that  known  as  '  Kentish '  in 
which  ornamentation  by  means  of  garnet  inlays  is  the  chief 
feature.  This  inlaid  work  is  a  subject  of  the  first  importance 
and  a  discussion  of  it  would  carry  us  at  once  beyond  the  field 
of  the  fibula.  It  is  therefore  omitted  in  this  place  and  a  full 
treatment  of  it  in  its  larger  aspects  will  be  given  in  Chapter  x. 
It  will  be  sufficient  here  to  establish  the  character  of  the  sub- 
type independently  of  the  special  ornamentation  connected 
with  it.  It  so  happens  that  it  is  a  fibula  type  that  is  very 
sparingly  represented  at  Bifrons  so  that  a  summary  treatment 
of  it  in  this  place  is  only  natural.  There  are  one  or  two 
Bifrons  examples  that  are  of  special  value  as  representing  an 
early  form  of  the  inlaid  jewel,  and  these  will  be  found  figured 
on  PL  cxlv,  5  to  8  (p.  S33)-  ^-  xxxvr>  IO>  gives  an  example 
of  a  later  and  more  common  form,  consisting  in  a  round  plate 
of  bronze  with  pin  attachment  at  the  back,  the  ornamentation 

III  s 


274  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

being  partly  composed  of  inlaid  garnets.  This  is  a  very  modest 
specimen  of  a  class  sometimes  represented  by  magnificent 
examples  of  the  craft  of  the  goldsmith  and  jewel  setter.  The 
genesis  of  the  round  disc  form  is  easy  to  trace.  It  is  a  familiar 
classical  product  in  use  among  the  Greeks,  Etruscans,  and 
Romans,  and  it  is  from  this  source  that  it  was  introduced  into 
the  Teutonic  world,  where  the  Franks  and  the  Jutes  of  Kent 
made  it  specially  their  own.  The  Etruscan  ladies  used  these 
round  brooches  to  fasten  their  raiment,  and  specimens  have 
been  found  in  their  tombs.  Greek  ladies  no  doubt  followed 
the  same  fashion,  though  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  Greek  tombs 
have  yielded  up  the  scantiest  possible  supply  of  objects  of  the 
kind.  Greek  sculpture  shows  representations  of  brooches 
fastening  on  the  shoulder  the  military  cloak  or  chlamys  of  the 
youths,  as  on  the  Parthenon  frieze,  but  the  tombs  disappoint 
us  when  we  search  them  for  the  originals.  The  Romans  also 
made  great  use  for  similar  purposes  of  fastenings  of  the  kind, 
and  the  famous  mosaic  pictures  of  Justinian  and  his  consort 
Theodora  in  S.  Vitale  at  Ravenna,  PI.  xxxiii,  i,  2  (p.  243), 
exhibit  the  Emperor  with  his  cloak  fastened  on  the  right 
shoulder  by  a  jewelled  disc  of  the  sort  under  review,  from 
which,  it  will  be  seen,  hang  down  three  pendants.  Theodora 
as  will  be  noticed  wears  a  pair  of  such  brooches,  one  on  each 
side,  and  this  corresponds  with  the  habit  of  the  German  ladies 
as  evidenced  in  the  cemeteries.  Upon  this  fashion  in  connec- 
tion with  the  general  question  of  the  Germanic  costume  of  the 
times  something  will  be  said  on  a  later  page  (p.  374  f.). 

Among  disc  fibulae  of  Teutonic  make  though  of  classical 
pattern  the  first  place  is  taken  by  a  pair  of  golden  ones  in  the 
second  treasure  of  Szilagy  Somlyo  at  Budapest  shown  on  the 
lowest  line  on  PL  cxliv  (p.  529).  They  measure  nearly  4  in. 
in  diameter  and  rise  in  the  form  of  truncated  cones  to  a  height 
of  about  1%  in.  The  ornament  is  in  repousse  work  in  gold 
and  inlays.  The  loops  to  which  pendants  were  attached  are 
seen  at  their  edge. 


XLVII 

facing  p.  275 


SAUCER  AND  APPLIED  BRIOCHES 


1,  considerably  reduced  ;  2,  about  natural  size 


DISC  AND  SAUCER  FIBULAE  275 

A  much  more  modest  form  of  the  disc  fibula  consists  in 
simple  bronze  plates,  ij-  in.  or  2  in.  in  diameter,  furnished 
underneath  with  pins,  and  ornamented  on  the  front  with 
stamped  or  incised  patterns  of  an  unpretentious  linear  kind. 
The  form  is  very  widely  distributed,  and  occurs  from  a  very 
early  period.  A  very  good  example  is  the  early  Bifrons  piece 
PI.  xxxvi,  6.  There  is  no  question  in  these  of  typology  or 
evolution,  and  they  remain  throughout  strong  serviceable 
adjuncts  to  the  toilette,  whose  only  interest  from  the  aesthetic 
side  is  their  ornament,  with  which  we  are  not  for  the  moment 
concerned.  It  happens  not  infrequently  that  bronze  circular 
plates  are  found  with  no  trace  of  ornament  on  the  face,  but 
provided  with  pins  at  the  back  or  perhaps  without  pins  but 
with  indications  that  these  had  once  been  attached.  There  is 
always  a  chance  here  that  an  ornamented  plate  in  thin  gilded 
bronze  or  even  in  gilded  silver  or  gold  had  once  been  cemented 
to  the  front  of  the  brooch  forming  its  artistic  finish.  Brooches 
with  thin  plates  of  the  kind  still  in  position  are  fairly  numerous 
and  constitute  the  important  class  known  as  'applied'  brooches. 
The  Bifrons  specimen  PI.  xxxvi,  7,  of  which  the  back  with 
broken  pin  attachment  is  shown  in  the  photograph,  was  almost 
certainly  a  piece  of  this  kind.  To  complete  such  a  brooch 
there  was  required  not  only  the  embossed  plate  but  also  a 
narrow  upright  rim  that  was  soldered  on  round  the  edge  and 
served  to  protect  the  applied  plate,  which  was  always  very  thin, 
from  damage.  This  rim  is  often  broken  away  even  when  the 
plate  or  part  of  it  is  preserved,  and  this  is  not  to  be  wondered 
at  as  the  construction  is  far  from  strong. 

It  was  experience  of  this  weakness  which  in  all  probability 
led  to  the  invention  of  the  *  saucer '  brooch  represented  at 
Bifrons  by  some  quite  unimportant  specimens  PI.  xxxvi,  5,  12. 
In  dimensions  and  general  character  the  two  agree  but  the 
saucer  brooch  is  a  thoroughly  sound  piece  of  work.  It  is 
made  in  one  piece  of  cast  bronze,  the  ornament  on  the  face 
being  afterwards   sharpened   up  with    the   chasing   tool   and 


276  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

gilded,  and  the  rim,  of  a  piece  with  the  rest,  is  set  at  an 
obtuse  angle  to  the  plate,  the  surface  of  which  it  effectually 
protects.  A  large  number  of  brooches  of  both  kinds  came 
to  light  at  Kempston  and  are  shown  PL  xlvii,  I. 

Both  the  saucer  and  applied  kinds  are  represented  here, 
the  former  above,  the  latter  in  the  lower  rows.  It  will  be 
seen  that  two  embossed  plates  of  applied  brooches  are  wholly 
detached  from  their  base,  and  in  other  instances  the  protective 
ring  originally  soldered  on  round  the  edge  has  come  away, 
whereas  the  saucer  specimens  are  as  sound  as  the  day  on  which 
they  were  turned  out,  and  this  sustains  Mr.  Thurlow  Leeds's 
contention  that  the  latter  represent  a  technical  improvement 
on  a  type  that  had  grown  up  in  somewhat  uncertain  fashion. 
A  curious  intermediate  form  seems  to  be  represented  by  the 
lowest  piece  on  the  plate,  No.  2,  which  gives  the  front  and 
back  views  of  a  saucer  brooch,  2§  in.  in  diameter,  from  Duston, 
Northants,  in  the  Northampton  Museum.  Here  the  fibula  is 
cast  with  the  rim  in  one  piece,  but  the  embossed  gilded  front 
plate  is  separate,  as  the  photograph  shows  in  the  lower  part. 

In  the  centre  of  the  Kempston  group  is  a  saucer  brooch  of 
minute  dimensions,  of  a  type  represented  at  Bifrons,  PL  xxxvi,  1. 
Specimens  of  this  type  measure  about  |-  in.  in  diameter,  and  are 
called  commonly  '  button  '  brooches.  This  variety  is  interest- 
ing both  from  its  distribution  and  from  the  kind  of  ornament 
applied  to  it,  and  will  be  further  discussed  on  a  subsequent 
page  (p.  321  f.). 

The  typological  interest  of  these  applied  and  saucer 
brooches  resides  mainly  in  the  character  of  their  ornamenta- 
tion, for  the  form  is  constant  and  the  difference  in  this  respect 
between  brooch  and  brooch,  apart  from  size,  depends  chiefly 
on  the  presence  in  some  examples,  especially  common  in  the 
Cambridgeshire  district,  of  a  central  boss  or  stud  that  sometimes 
carries  an  inlay  of  garnet.  PI.  lx,  6  (p.  319),  is  an  example. 
The  diameter  of  saucer  brooches  varies  from  about  1^  to  cl- 
inches.    With  the  ornament  we  are  not  at  the  moment  con- 


FOREIGN  APPLIED  BROOCHES  277 

cerned  but  on  the  origin  and  pre-history  of  the  sub-type  a 
word  or  two  must  be  said. 

These  were  discussed  in  a  valuable  paper  in  a  recent 
volume  of  Archaeologia^  vol.  lxiii,  by  Mr.  Thurlow  Leeds  of 
the  Ashmolean  Museum  at  Oxford.  Like  some  other  char- 
acteristic English  products  they  may  be  traced  back  to  earlier 
forms  which  occur  in  Romanized  lands  and  also  in  the  regions 
of  northern  Europe  from  which  our  Teutonic  forefathers 
drew  their  origin,  but  they  are  only  seen  there,  so  to  say,  in 
embryo,  and  their  case  is  like  that  of  the  small  long  fibulae 
just  discussed  in  connection  with  the  Kempston  finds,  in  that 
while  they  may  originate  abroad  their  development  is  a  specially 
English  affair.  The  saucer  brooch  cast  in  one  piece  seems 
only  to  be  represented  abroad  by  two  small  specimens  in  the 
Museum  at  Hamburg,  and  one  stray  piece,  found  in  the 
cemetery  of  Harmignies  in  Belgium  and  now  in  the  Museum 
at  Brussels.  These  are  figured  later  on,  PI.  cxlix,  8,  4 
(p.  553).  The  Harmignies  specimen,  No.  4,  is  i-|  in.  across 
and  the  two  Hamburg  ones,  No.  8,  from  a  cremation  cemetery 
in  the  Hanoverian  province  at  Alten  Buls,  are  less  than  1  in. 
The  Belgian  piece  seems  late  and  may  very  likely  be  an  import 
from  England,  but  the  Alten  Buls  burial  contained  early  objects 
associated  with  these  saucer  fibulae  and  this  find  seems  to  prove 
that  the  saucer  brooch  was  actually  being  made  by  the  con- 
tinental kinsmen  of  our  English  settlers  about  the  time  that 
the  migration  took  place. 

The  complete  applied  brooch  is  also  abroad  of  great  rarity 
though  more  examples  are  known  than  of  the  saucer  brooch. 
One  from  Maroeuil,  Pas  de  Calais,  in  the  Museum  at  Brussels, 
is  shown  later,  PL  cxlix,  i  (p.  $53).  It  is  1  j-  in.  in  diameter 
and  has  the  pin  at  the  back  in  working  order.  Another  from 
Sigy,  Seine  Inferieure,  at  Rouen,  PI.  cxlix,  2,  2  in.  across,  is 
specially  interesting  because  the  ornament  on  the  applied  plate 
closely  resembles  that  on  an  applied  brooch  found  at  East 
Sheffbrd,  Berks,  PI.  cxlix,   5.     A  curious  trident  shape  is 


278  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

common  to  both.  Detached  plates  are  more  common  abroad 
than  the  complete  brooches.  There  is  one  in  the  Ashmolean 
from  Waben,  Pas  de  Calais,  and  some  other  Franco-Roman 
ones  of  earlier  date  are  shown  on  PL  cxlviii.  Such  plates 
also  occur  in  the  Elbe  Mouth  region,  and  one  of  the  most 
interesting  in  the  Museum  at  Hanover  will  be  found  figured 
PI.  cxlix,  3.  There  are  two  appliques  probably  for  brooches 
in  the  Museum  at  Stade,  PI.  cxlix,  7.  In  this  Hanoverian 
region  the  bronze  plate  which  carries  the  pin  makes  its 
appearance  not  infrequently,  devoid  of  any  applied  disc,  and 
of  any  protecting  rim.  Specimens  from  the  Museums  at 
Hanover  and  Geestemiinde  are  shown  PL  xlvi,  i  to  3.  It  may 
be  noticed  that  No.  3,  at  Hanover,  shows  the  peculiarity  that 
a  flat  rim  has  been  soldered  round  the  outer  circumference  of 
the  face  of  the  brooch,  which  has  a  hole  in  the  centre  of  it. 
A  precisely  similar  piece  was  found  at  Little  Wilbraham, 
Cambridgeshire,  and  is  figured  under  no.  22  on  pi.  3  of 
Neville's  Saxon  Obsequies. 

Some  of  these  continental  specimens,  e.g.  that  from 
Hanover  shown  PL  xlvi,  i,  possess  the  significant  character- 
istic that  the  face  shows  traces  of  enamel,  and  it  is  evident 
that  the  enrichment  was  in  these  cases  in  the  form  of  coloured 
vitreous  pastes  and  not  in  that  of  a  thin  '  applied '  plate  with 
embossed  ornaments.  This  use  of  enamel  which  is  not 
uncommon  in  these  continental  plate  brooches  found  in  the 
North  gives  a  clue  to  their  origin.  They  are  probably  Ger- 
manic imitations  of  the  provincial-Roman  enamelled  bronze 
brooches  which  were  in  very  common  use  at  the  beginning  of 
the  migration  period.  These  brooches  were  turned  out  in 
great  numbers  and  exported  to  all  parts  of  the  Roman  Empire 
so  that  they  come  to  light  almost  everywhere,  from  the  north- 
western frontier  posts  of  the  Empire  in  the  Scottish  lowlands 
to  the  south-eastern  limit  by  the  Euphrates.  There  is  evidence 
that  they  were  manufactured  in  considerable  abundance  II  and 
III  a.d.  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Namur,  from  which  locality 


XLVIII 

facing  p.  279 


PLATE  FIBULAE  OF  SPECIAL  FORMS 


/,  2,  are  Continental 


USE  OF  ENAMELLING  279 

comes  the  example  shown  in  its  natural  colours  PI.  E,  1  (p.  519), 
but  there  must  have  been  many  active  centres  of  fabrication. 
There  is  great  variety  in  their  shapes,  animal  forms  being 
much  in  evidence,  but  the  round  disc  bulks  very  largely  in 
every  collection  of  examples,  and  not  uncommonly  carries  in 
the  centre  a  projecting  stud.  The  enamel  on  these  is  of  the 
champleve  kind  and  the  bronze  out  of  which  the  cells  are 
hollowed  is  of  substantial  thickness.  The  plate  brooches  or 
1  Scheibenfibeln,'  to  give  them  their  German  name,  with  which 
we  are  at  the  moment  concerned,  are  as  a  rule  enamelled  in 
the  encrusting  technique  by  means  of  thin  films  of  the  vitreous 
pastes  floated  on  the  surface,  though  there  is  one  very  fine, 
and  as  yet  unpublished,  piece  in  a  northern  Museum  where 
the  enamel  is  fused  into  cloisons  of  bronze.  The  art  of 
enamelling  was  known  among  the  Germans  of  the  migration 
period  and  was  practised  even  by  the  Anglo-Saxons  (p.  519  f.) 
but  it  was  never  a  craft  that  any  of  the  Teutonic  peoples 
favoured,  and  was  only,  so  to  say,  kept  alive  ready  to  be 
revived  in  the  Carolingian  and  later  periods.  It  was  quite 
natural  that  the  process  should  soon  be  dropped  in  the  orna- 
mentation of  the  '  Scheibenfibeln,'  and  that  its  place  should 
be  taken  by  the  thin  embossed  plates  of  gilded  bronze  which 
had  been  in  use  from  late  Roman  times  (PL  cxlviii),  while 
the  projecting  central  stud  may  conceivably  be  a  Roman 
reminiscence. 

The  above  is  a  possible  and  even  a  plausible  theory  of  the 
origin  of  the  applied  and  saucer  brooches.  The  probable 
history  of  the  brooches  in  this  country,  which  has  practically 
a  monopoly  of  them,  can  only  be  surmised  on  the  basis  of  a 
comparative  study  of  their  ornamentation,  and  this  will  pre- 
sently be  undertaken. 

A  disc  form  of  the  plate  fibula  that  must  not  be  passed 
over  is  that  shown  PL  xlvi,  5,  6.  ■No.  6  is  a  silver  brooch  at 
York  from  the  Croft  collection,  enclosing  in  a  series  of  con- 
centric circles  formed  of  beading  a  copy  of  a  silver  coin  of  the 


280  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

Emperor  Valentinian.  This  would  suggest  rather  an  early 
date  for  the  piece,  and  this  is  borne  out  to  some  extent  by  the 
occurrence  of  a  very  similar  fibula  with  a  copy  of  a  Byzantine 
coin  set  in  concentric  rings  of  granulated  work  in  gold  in  the 
Museum  at  Leeuwarden,  where  it  is  ascribed  to  VI  or  VII. 
At  the  same  time  also  it  resembles  closely  in  its  style  a  class 
of  disc  brooches  made  of  pewter,  of  which  No.  5,  from  the 
Guildhall  Museum,  London,  is  a  specimen.  These  appear  all 
to  be  late,  in  the  Danish  period,  and  if  this  be  the  case  the 
type  must  have  been  fairly  persistent — though  the  material 
degenerated  from  gold  and  silver  to  pewter. 

The  form  of  the  plate  fibula  reserved  to  the  last  is  seen  in 
PI.  xxxv,  11.  It  is  a  summary  representation  of  a  bird  with  a 
pronounced  hooked  beak,  and  is  generally  small  and  compara- 
tively rude  in  execution.  It  is  probably  Gothic  in  its  ultimate 
origin,  and  we  may  recognize  a  monumental  form  of  it  in  the 
immense  '  ibis  '  fibula  in  the  Treasure  of  Petrossa,  PL  xlviii,  i. 
The  f  bird '  fibulae  with  which  we  are  now  dealing  are  very 
ignoble  satellites  of  such  a  lordly  ancestor,  but  the  descent  is 
none  the  less  probable.  Such  bird  fibulae  occur  in  finds  in 
Hungary  but  are  especially  common  in  the  Merovingian 
cemeteries  of  France.  On  the  question  of  the  significance  of 
the  bird  form  something  will  be  said  later  on  (p.  526  f.)  in 
connection  with  Gothic  art  generally.  Another  bird  form 
which  sometimes  makes  its  appearance  is  that  of  the  duck,  of 
which  an  example  from  Chessell  Down  in  the  Isle  of  Wight  is 
shown  PI.  xlvi,  4. 

There  is  a  kind  of  brooch  formed  of  the  bodies  of  two 
birds  arranged  back  to  back  in  such  a  way  as  to  suggest  the 
letter  '  S,'  whence  the  name  '  S  '-shaped  fibulae  sometimes  given 
to  examples.  The  type  is  represented,  though  not  exactly,  in 
one  of  the  remarkable  appliques  from  Buttsole,  Eastry,  Kent, 
at  Maidstone,  PL  xxiv,  2  (p.  203),  bottom  line  to  the  right. 
One  or  two  specimens  have  been  found  in  this  country  but 
they  are  of  extreme  rarity.     The  national  collection  embraces 


DECORATED  QUOIT  FIBULAE 


i,  2,  3,  enlarged  by  about  one-half 


ABNORMAL  <  PLATE'  FIBULAE  281 

two,  one  from  Chessell  Down,  and  the  other  from  Iffley, 
Oxon.  This  example  is  figured  PL  xlviii,  7.  One  was  found 
in  the  cemetery  at  Sleaford,  Lincolnshire.1 

Under  the  heading  '  plate  fibulae '  may  be  grouped  one  or 
two  abnormal  pieces,  for  this  name  as  we  have  seen  is  used 
with  a  very  extensive  denotation.  The  example  of  which  a 
view  is  given  in  No.  3  on  PL  xlviii  was  found  near  Milden- 
hall  in  Suffolk  and  belongs  to  Mr.  S.  G.  Fenton  of  London. 
It  consists  in  four  birds'  heads  arranged  in  a  •  swastika  '  pattern. 
In  the  centre  there  is  a  square  sinking  filled  with  red  enamel 
of  the  transparent  kind,  the  '  Blut-Email '  of  Otto  Tischler, 
and  the  eyes  of  the  creatures  were  also  enamelled.  The 
material  is  bronze  and  the  size  of  each  side  of  the  square  is 
a  little  under  2  in.  Mr.  Reginald  Smith  signalizes  this  as  one 
of  the  earliest  pieces  of  Teutonic  work  in  the  country  but  like 
the  bird  fibulae  generally  it  comes  from  the  Gothic  east  by  way  of 
Hungary,  where  prototypes  of  it  occur.  The  one  which  most 
nearly  resembles  it  was  found  at  Fenek,  and  Professor  Hampel 
dates  it  in  the  second  half  of  VI,2  so  that  the  Mildenhall  piece 
need  not  be  placed  at  a  very  remote  epoch. 

The  recent  discovery  of  a  very  richly  furnished  South 
Saxon  burial  place  at  Alfriston  in  Sussex  supplies  us  with  a 
specimen  pair  of  so-called  '  swastika '  brooches,  a  form  occa- 
sionally found  before  in  this  country  especially  in  the  Midlands. 
The  piece,  PL  xlviii,  5,  measures  1  in.  across  and  has  the  pin 
attachment  behind. 

Another  *  swastika  '  brooch  with  the  device  in  open-work  is 
shown  PL  xlviii,  6.  It  is  from  Market  Overton,  Rutland,  and 
is  now  at  Tickencote  Hall.  The  triangular  plate  brooch,  No.  4, 
is  at  Cambridge  and  was  found  at  Lakenheath  Warren,  Suffolk. 
It  would  not  be  difficult  to  find  other  abnormal  forms  of 
the  fibula  to  place  by  the  side  of  those  here  shown,  but  in  the 
interests  of  space  it  will  be  best  to  proceed  to  the  next  heading. 

1  Archaeologia,  l,  388. 

2  Alttrtk'umer  in  Ungarn,  1,  780,  and  in,  Taf.  177,  I. 


282  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

Under  the  c  ring '  type  the  '  quoit '  fibula  may  be  first  con- 
sidered, as  in  appearance  it  bears  a  considerable  resemblance 
to  the  simple  form  of  the  disc  fibula  already  noticed  (p.  275), 
though  its  manner  of  use  in  relation  to  the  fabric  it  fastens 
is  quite  different,  while  it  is  often  ornamented  in  the  same 
simple  fashion  with  incised  or,  rather,  stamped  linear  patterns. 
Examples  are  however  met  with  of  far  greater  aesthetic  pre- 
tensions than  the  modest  specimen  in  bronze  on  the  Bifrons 
Plate  xxxvi,  No.  8.  The  finest  of  these  was  found  at  Sarre, 
Kent,  and  is  shown  on  an  enlarged  scale  PL  xlix,  i.  The 
original  measures  3^  in.  in  diameter  and  is  of  silver  parcel 
gilt,  with  cast  ornaments  added  in  the  form  of  birds.  The 
plaque  is  ornamented  in  a  technique  that  may  be  partly  punched 
and  partly  incised  work,  but  is  more  probably  only  the  former. 
An  examination  of  the  back  shows  that  the  plate  has  been  laid 
on  some  unyielding  surface  and  operated  upon  from  the  front 
with  punches  and  tracing  tools  driven  by  the  hammer.  There 
are  indications  of  the  design  at  the  back  but  the  process  is  not 
repousse  work  proper,  for  the  metal  is  not  forced  out  at  the 
back  where  it  is  indented  on  the  front,  as  would  be  the  case 
were  the  plate  laid  on  a  yielding  ground  such  as  the  pitch  and 
plaster  composition  now  in  use.  A  touch  of  human  interest  is 
added  to  the  piece  when  we  note  that  an  error  has  been  made 
in  setting  out  the  design  and  a  naive  device  adopted  for  con- 
cealing it  from  the  eye.  The  two  bands  of  ornament  are 
filled  with  figures  of  animals  in  pairs,  on  which  a  word  will  be 
said  later  on  (p.  562  f.).  On  the  outer  band  there  are  nine  pairs 
and  it  was  evidently  intended  to  have  the  same  on  the  inner 
band  where  the  animals  are  so  disposed  as  to  take  less  space. 
By  some  miscalculation  however  there  are  only  eight  pairs  and 
a  half,  so  that  there  is  one  odd  animal.  To  conceal  this  error 
one  of  the  cast  silver  doves,  that  which  points  its  head  towards 
the  centre,  is  riveted  over  the  place  and  prevents  the  casual 
glance  apprehending  that  anything  is  wrong.  There  are  few 
more  interesting  or  beautiful  pieces  of  early  Anglo-Saxon  art 


THE  QUOIT  BROOCH  283 

in  existence.     It  will  be  noted  that  a  third  dove  is  perched 
upon  the  hinge  end  of  the  pin. 

Another  interesting  but  smaller  specimen,  i-|  in.  in  dia- 
meter, also  of  silver,  has  quite  recently  come  to  light  at 
Alfriston  in  Sussex,  PI.  xlix,  2,  and  is  of  especial  value  owing  to 
the  occurrence  in  its  traced  enrichment  of  a  floral  pattern  that 
is  in  Teutonic  work  of  extreme  rarity.  We  are  only  concerned 
here  with  the  question  of  form,  and  from  this  point  of  view  it 
must  be  noted  that  there  are  three  makes  of  the  '  quoit '  brooches 
two  of  which  answer  to  the  two  kinds  of f  ring '  brooches,  those 
completely  annular  and  the  penannular  ones.  The  Bifrons 
quoit  brooch,  PI.  xxxvi,  8,  has  an  unbroken  circumference 
within  and  without,  and  the  pin,  which  is  hinged  by  means  of 
a  small  hole  near  the  margin  of  the  inner  circle,  rests  on  the 
top  of  the  flat  ring  on  the  opposite  side  of  this  inner  circle. 
When  it  was  used,  the  fabric,  or  the  two  portions  of  it  which 
had  to  be  joined  together,  was  forced  up  in  a  little  bunch 
through  the  central  aperture  and  the  pin  was  passed  through 
it  or  the  two  adjacent  portions  of  it.  The  drag  of  the  stuff 
then  brought  the  point  of  the  pin  down  against  the  plate  and 
kept  it  there.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  Sarre  brooch,  in  an 
example  from  Alfriston,  Sussex,  PL  xlix,  3  (not  the  one 
referred  to  above)  and  other  specimens,  the  outer  circuit  of 
the  band  is  complete  but  its  inner  circumference  is  broken  by 
a  deep  notch  which  allows  the  point  of  the  hinged  pin  to  pass 
through.  When  the  brooch  was  in  use  the  pin  would  be 
dropped  through  this  opening  and  passed  through  the  two  pieces 
of  fabric  it  was  desired  to  hold  together.  The  point,  project- 
ing out  of  the  fabric,  would  now  be  passed  up  again  through 
the  notch  and  to  prevent  it  slipping  back  it  was  moved  a  little 
to  one  side  where  it  would  be  caught  against  one  of  two  studs 
that  stand  out  from  the  band  and  serve  as  guards  to  the 
opening.  In  Nos.  1  and  2  on  PI.  xlix  the  pin  is  hinged 
round,  and  allowed  to  move  laterally  upon,  a  separate  ring 
attached  to  the  plate.     In  No.  3  it  is  hinged  in  a  hole  in  the 


284  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

plate  and  such  lateral  movement  is  not  possible,  except  so  far 
as  the  looseness  of  the  hinge  enables  the  point  to  be  diverted 
to  the  outer  side  of  one  of  the  small  knobs.  Most  often, 
instead  of  the  knobs,  there  are  slightly  elevated  ridges  on  the 
sides  of  the  opening  to  prevent  the  pin  slipping  back.  The 
Bifrons  quoit  brooch,  PI.  xxxvi,  8,  shows  these,  though  here 
there  is  no  actual  opening,  and  it  is  probable  that  their  appear- 
ance here  is  a  case  of  survival  and  serves  to  indicate  the 
presence  in  a  former  state  of  existence  of  the  brooch  of  a  real 
slit,  such  as  we  see  in  PI.  li,  i  ,  a  piece  from  the  Bloxam  collection 
in  the  School  Museum,  Rugby.  This  we  know  to  be  an  early 
piece  as  it  was  found  in  conjunction  with  the  Watling  Street 
cruciform  brooch  PI.  xli,  i  (p.  261)  and  other  objects  of 
a  date  about  500  a.d.  In  the  third  kind  of  quoit  brooch  the 
band  is  completely  severed  and  becomes  penannular  as  in 
PL  xlix,  2.  The  three  pieces  on  PI.  xlix  are  shown  enlarged 
by  one  half,  such  enlargement  being  really  necessary  in  order 
to  exhibit  the  design  and  technique,  especially  on  the  Sarre 
brooch,  No.  1.  No.  3,  it  should  be  noted,  is  of  silvered  bronze 
not  like  the  others  of  silver.  It  measures  in  diameter  i-^  in. 
and  is  ornamented  with  simple  linear  punched  designs. 

Penannular  and  annular  brooches  are  comprised  in  the 
last  set  of  fibulae  with  which  we  have  to  deal.  Only  the 
second  kind  is  represented  in  the  Bifrons  collection,1  see 
PI.  xxxvi,  2,  3,  4,  9,  11,  13.  The  archaeology  of  them 
opens  up  some  interesting  questions  into  which  it  is  not 
possible  to  enter  at  any  length  in  this  place,  and  as  the  pen- 
annular  brooch  belongs  rather  to  the  Viking  age  than  to  that 
of  the  pagan  tomb  furniture  there  will  be  a  suitable  opportunity 
for  discussing  it  afterwards  in  this  connection.  These 
brooches  correspond  in  their  manner  of  use  to  the  two  kinds 
of  quoit  brooch,  the  closed  and  the  open,  just  passed  in  review, 

1  See  however  the  remark  made  previously  (p.  247  note2)  about  a 
possible  penannular  example,  that  is  figured  and  discussed  later  on  under 
the  rubric  'bracelet'  (p.  445  f.). 


L 

facing  p.  285 


NON-SAXON  RING  FIBULAE 


PENANNULAR  BROOCHES  285 

and  the  construction  of  PL  xlix,  i  and  2  seems  to  show  that 
the  ring  brooches  are  prior  to  those  in  the  quoit  form,  for  we 
see  in  both  the  Sarre  and  the  Alfriston  examples  a  penannular 
ring  brooch  added  to  the  quoit-shaped  plate  in  order  to  secure 
the  easy  lateral  movement  of  the  pin.  In  the  various  species 
of  fibulae  we  see  constantly  at  work  the  desire  to  secure 
additional  space  for  the  display  of  ornament,  and  it  is  probable 
that  the  quoit  form  is  merely  a  ring  flattened  out  with  this 
end  in  view.  Its  pin  arrangement  connects  it  with  the  ring 
rather  than  with  the  disc  type  of  fibula,  though  as  we  have 
seen  its  ornamentation  resembles  that  of  some  of  the  discs. 
Some  ring  brooches  are  partly  flattened  out  and  seem  to  re- 
present a  transitional  stage.    This  is  the  case  with  PL  li,  4,1  7. 

Both  penannular  and  annular  brooches  are  prior  to  the 
migration  period  and  the  Teutons  took  them  over  from  the 
Romans  and  the  Celts.  A  Romano-British  example  of  the 
former  kind  from  Ham  Hill,  Somerset,  in  the  Museum  at 
Taunton  is  shown  PL  l,  i,  and  beside  it,  No.  2,  is  a  pen- 
annular  brooch  found  at  High  Down,  Sussex,  which  the  ex- 
plorer of  the  cemetery,  Sir  Hercules  Read,  pronounced  '  very 
Celtic  in  type,'  and  for  which  an  almost  exact  parallel  can  be 
produced  from  Leicester.  It  is  figured  in  the  first  Leicester 
volume  of  the  Victoria  History. 

The  Celtic  brooch  PL  l,  i,  has  been  chosen  because  in  the 
turned-back  ends  of  the  ring  it  furnishes  the  prototype  for  the 
similar  treatment  of  the  terminals  of  the  Alfriston  quoit  brooch, 
PL  xlix,  2,  and  this  is,  of  course,  evidence  favouring  an  early 
date  for  the  latter.  The  development  of  these  two  inherited 
forms  in  the  migration  period  is  a  little  curious.  The  pen- 
annular  brooch  is  so  convenient  in  its  arrangements  for 
fastening,  which  have  just  been  explained  in  connection  with 
the  quoit  brooch,  that  it  might  have  been  expected  to  prevail 
over  the  clumsier  ring,  and  we  should  expect  to  find  the  latter 
opening  out  in  order  to  let  the  pin  come  through.  As  a  fact 
1  Hull  Scientific  and  Naturalists'  Club  Transactions,  vol.  iv,  pt.  v,  p.  266. 


286  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

the  process  is  a  contrary  one,  for  the  penannular  brooch  closes 
up  and  becomes  an  unbroken  ring  allowing  no  passage  for  the 
pin.  The  change  is  a  puzzling  one,  and  Mr.  Romilly  Allen 
comments  on  it  as  follows.1  He  is  dealing  with  the  Celtic 
examples  so  common  across  St.  George's  Channel.  *  In  the 
final  stage  of  the  development  of  the  penannular  brooch  in 
Ireland,'  he  writes,  '  it  ceased  to  be  penannular,  if  we  may  be 
permitted  to  use  such  an  Irish  expression.  The  break  in  the 
ring  was  entirely  filled  up,  although  its  position  can  still  be 
traced  by  the  method  of  arranging  the  pattern,  which  survived 
in  its  old  form  long  after  the  split  had  disappeared.  The 
celebrated  Tara  brooch  in  the  Museum  of  the  Royal  Irish 
Academy  affords  a  striking  example  of  this.  The  doing  away 
of  the  break  in  the  ring,'  he  continues,  '  must  have  entirely 
defeated  the  original  purpose  the  brooch  was  intended  to 
serve,  and  it  would,  therefore,  appear  that  these  highly  decor- 
ated brooches  were  made  rather  for  ceremonial  use,  than  to  be 
of  any  practical  value  as  dress  fasteners.'  This  last  sugges- 
tion would  carry  more  weight  if  it  were  not  for  the  existence 
of  the  annular  brooches  which  must  always  have  been  things 
of  use  and  which  overlap  in  point  of  time  the  penannular 
ones.  The  closed  penannular  brooch  is  therefore  not  an 
aberration  but  a  return  to  an  early  and  a  persistent  type  that 
remains  in  vogue  from  Roman  times  till  the  middle  ages. 
The  reason  for  this  absorption  of  the  penannular  into  the 
annular  form  is  hard  to  see.  Possibly  the  great  popularity 
of  the  buckle  in  this  period  may  have  had  something  to  do 
with  it.  As  we  shall  see  later  on,  the  simplest  form  of  the 
buckle  is  almost  the  same  thing  as  the  annular  brooch,  and 
the  resemblance  of  the  latter  to  the  former  may  have  contri- 
buted to  its  popularity. 

In  many  cases  these  annular  fibulae  are  so  simple  and 
unpretentious  that  it  is  really  impossible  to  tell  by  mere  inspec- 
tion whether  a  particular  piece  is  Roman,  pagan  Saxon,  later 

1   Celtic  Art,  p.  229. 


ANGLO-SAXON  RING  FIBULAE 


i,  2,  4,  7,  about  natural  size;   8,  §  natural  size;   3,  5,  6,  a  little  reduced  ; 
10,  11,  somewhat  enlarged 
12  is  Continental 


ANNULAR  BROOCHES  287 

Saxon,  or  mediaeval.  PL  l,  3  shows  a  pair  found  in  the 
garden  at  Audley  End,  Essex,  and  probably  mediaeval. 
PL  l,  4,  was  unearthed  on  Coquet  Island  off  the  coast  of 
Northumberland,  and  is  now  in  the  Museum  at  Alnwick 
Castle.  In  conjunction  with  it  was  found  an  enamelled  plaque 
PL  l,  5,  that  so  far  as  its  make  goes  might  be  late  Saxon  but 
has  the  vitreous  pastes  distributed  round  the  outer  circle  in 
spaces  that  are  so  like  the  form  of  the  mediaeval  heater-shaped 
shield,  that  the  two  must  probably  be  referred  to  XII,  when 
the  island  was  the  seat  of  a  small  religious  establishment.  On 
the  other  hand  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  the  Anglo-Saxon 
origin  of  the  plain  ring  brooches  shown  on  the  Bifrons 
Plate  xxxvi  (p.  245),  nor  that  of  the  examples  from  Stapen- 
hill,  PL  li,  2  ;  from  Hornsea,  at  Hull,  PL  li,  4  ;  from  West 
Stow  Heath,  Suffolk,  in  the  Museum  at  Bury  St.  Edmunds, 
PL  li,  3,  and  from  Uncleby,  Yorkshire,  PL  li,  6.  The  Hull 
Museum  contains  a  remarkable  example  found  at  Londes- 
borough  that  is  shown  PL  li,  5.  It  is  made  of  the  tine  of  a 
stag's  horn  and  is  2^  in.  in  its  widest  diameter.  It  is  not 
absolutely  certain  that  this  was  a  brooch.  A  similar  piece  was 
found  at  Sleaford.  The  pin  here  would  be  detached  and 
would  be  run  through  the  bunch  of  stuff  pushed  up  through 
the  central  opening.  It  has  been  suggested  that  sundry 
bronze  rings  the  purpose  of  which  is  not  very  clear  may 
have  been  used  in  the  same  way  with  detached  pins  as 
brooches. 

The  Hornsea  and  West  Stow  Heath  pieces,  and  one  or 
the  two  from  Uncleby,  have  their  rings  not  plain  but  orna- 
mented, and  this  introduces  some  fresh  considerations. 
Ornament  shows  itself  on  the  fibulae  of  the  kinds  now  under 
notice  in  two  forms,  on  the  annular  kind  in  a  moulding, 
ribbing,  or  faceting  of  the  ring  ;  on  the  penannular  kind  in 
the  decorative  treatment  of  the  terminals  at  the  opening, 
sometimes  by  moulding  them  into  animals'  heads.  In  both 
kinds  the  part  where  the  pin  turns  and  the  head  of  the  pin 


288  FORMS  OF  THE  FIBULA 

itself  may  receive  some  enrichment.  In  the  case  of  the  ring 
a  bossy  treatment  is  generally  held  to  indicate  an  early  date 
for  this  is  characteristic  of  the  Early  Iron  Age,  where  it  is 
found  on  bracelets  of  the  Hallstatt  period,1  and  also  on  Late- 
Celtic  horse  trappings  which  will  be  noticed  on  a  subsequent 
page,  PI.  c  (p.  423).  Faceting,  such  as  is  seen  in  the  Suffolk 
specimen  PI.  li,  3,  is  commonly  held  to  betoken  a  Roman 
connection  and  hence  an  early  date,  for  Roman  objects  of  a 
similar  kind  in  bronze  are  sharply  filed  and  chased  in  patterns 
that  correspond.  The  fibulae  in  which  animals'  heads  occur 
as  terminals  of  the  ring  or  of  sections  of  it,  might  also  claim 
a  very  early  date,  for  on  classical  bracelets  of  Greek  and 
Roman  origin  it  is  quite  normal  to  find  animals  or  animals' 
heads  so  employed  as  terminals  of  the  open  ring.  In  early 
Scandinavian  art  of  about  400  a.d.  there  are  similar  though 
barbaric  animals'  heads  on  the  ends  of  golden  necklets  and 
armlets  of  which  the  Museum  at  Stockholm  has  a  fine  collec- 
tion. One  of  the  best  and  earliest,  found  in  Finland,  is 
shown  PI.  li,  12. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  however  to  argue  from  these  facts 
in  favour  of  an  early  date  for  the  pseudo-penannular  brooches 
with  heads  of  animals  on  them,  PI.  li,  8  and  10.  No.  8  is  a 
Bifrons  piece  already  illustrated  on  PI.  xxxvi,  and  10  is  a 
silver  brooch  found  at  Faversham,  iT^  in.  in  diameter,  now  in 
the  British  Museum.  The  Bifrons  example  has  a  knobby  ring 
and  two  pairs  of  confronted  heads,  one  where  the  pin  is  hinged 
and  the  other  opposite  to  this  point,  and  the  Faversham  one 
has  a  banded  ring  and  one  pair  of  heads  by  the  point  of  the 
pin.  It  will  be  noticed  however  that  in  both  cases  we  are  deal- 
ing with  a  brooch  that  should  be  penannular  but  has  become 
closed  up,  the  ornament  however  still  showing,  as  Mr.  Romilly 
Allen  pointed  out,  the  place  where  the  division  should  be. 
This   suggests  rather  an  advanced   date,  and   such  a  date  is 

1  British  Museum,  Guide  to  the  Antiquities  of  the  Early  Iron  Jge,  p.  38 
and  fig.  33. 


A  QUESTION  OF  DATE  289 

rendered  a  practical  certainty  by  the  occurrence  at  Uncleby  in 
Yorkshire,  PL  li,  ii,  of  a  small  silver  pseudo-penannular 
brooch,  ijf  in.  across,  with  one  pair  of  heads  like  the  Bifrons 
pair  and  another  pair  of  heads  like  those  on  the  Faversham 
example.  Now  the  Uncleby  finds,  like  those  in  other  Anglo- 
Saxon  burials  on  the  Yorkshire  Wolds,  are  on  the  whole  of  a 
latish  date,  and  at  Uncleby  Mr.  Reginald  Smith  has  pointed 
out1  a  remarkable  resemblance  in  much  of  the  tomb  furniture 
to  that  found  in  Kent.  This  applies  to  garnet  inlays,  and  these 
occur  on  an  interesting  annular  brooch,  with  reminiscences  of 
a  previous  state  of  penannular  existence,  from  Uncleby  in  the 
York  Museum,  shown  PI.  li,  7.  Here  there  are  two  animals' 
heads  with  open  jaws  and  aggressive  garnet  eyes  at  the  hinge 
side  of  the  brooch  which  is  completely  annular  and  of  a 
flattened  quoit-like  section.  The  extension  of  this  Kentish 
inlaid  work  to  the  north  probably  comes  about  the  year  600, 
and  the  type  of  the  heads  themselves  on  Nos.  10,  11  agrees 
with  this.2  Hence  li,  8  and  10,  with  the  kindred  Uncleby 
piece  may  be  of  early  VII  date. 

PI.  li,  9,  is  a  rather  clumsy  piece  that  is  probably  barbaric, 
from  the  Bloxam  collection  in  the  School  Museum  at  Rugby. 
It  is  genuinely  penannular,  that  is  to  say  there  is  an  opening 
between  the  knobs,  though  they  have  been  forced  into  contact 
through  some  accidental  pressure  that  has  bent  the  brooch  out 
of  shape.  It  comes  from  the  Watling  Street  find  of  about 
500  a.d.  (p.  774),  as  does  also  the  quoit  brooch  PI.  li,  i. 

1  Proc.  Soc.  Ant.,  2  Ser.,  xxiv,  146  f,  and  Victoria  History ,  Yorkshire,  11. 

2  They  accord  with  the  heads  of  Salin's  '  Style  11,'  see  Thierornamentik, 
p.  245  f.  and  especially  p.  326.  Compare  also  the  head  in  the  Taplow 
clasp,  PI.  lxxvii,  2  (p.  361)  that  dates  early  in  VII. 


Ill 


CHAPTER  VI 

TOMB  FURNITURE:  (III)  ORNAMENTATION  ON  FIBULAE 
AND  OTHER  OBJECTS 

In  the  foregoing  discussion  of  the  fibula  account  has  been 
taken  of  the  forms  only  and  not  of  the  enrichment.  The 
object  however  is  one  that  offers  itself  especially  for  ornamental 
treatment  and  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  the  whole 
subject  of  Teutonic  decorative  art  can  be  illustrated  from  what 
appears  on  the  fibulae.  It  is  proposed  accordingly  to  deal  in 
this  connection  with  the  theme  of  decoration,  and  in  close 
association  therewith  with  the  theme  of  the  technical  processes 
by  which  enrichment  is  produced,  so  that  the  subject  now 
before  us  is  Anglo-Saxon  ornamentation  of  the  pagan  period 
especially  as  it  is  illustrated  on  the  fibulae. 

The  familiar  main  headings,  under  which  motives  are 
grouped  as  linear,  floral,  zoomorphic,  and  anthropomorphic, 
will  serve  the  present  purpose  as  a  convenient  division  of  the 
theme,  but  to  *  linear '  should  be  added  '  conventional.' 
Linear  ornament  proper  consists  in  dots,  lines,  chevrons,  circles, 
close- coiled  spirals,  and  the  like.1  The  ornamental  motives 
called  here  '  conventional '  differ  from  these  in  that  they  are 
obviously,  or  at  any  rate  certainly,  derived  from  representa- 

1  In  distinguishing  linear  or  geometrical  ornament  from  what  is  here 
called  'conventional '  there  is  no  intention  of  ignoring  the  fact  that  it  is  now 
recognized  that  very  many  patterns  used  especially  among  savage  races,  which 
seemed  to  the  eye  a  mere  play  of  lines,  are  in  reality  degenerate  representa- 
tions of  natural  objects.  For  practical  purposes  the  distinction  made  above 
holds  good.  The  word  '  linear '  or  '  geometrical '  when  applied  to  ornament 
conveys  on  the  whole  a  clear  idea  of  a  certain  class  of  motives,  and  this  is  all 
that  for  the  present  purpose  is  required  of  it. 

290 


TECHNICAL  PROCESSES  291 

tions  of  natural  or  artificial  objects,  though  the  forms  are  often 
as  the  Germans  say  '  stylized  '  out  of  all  recognition.  Examples 
are  the  familiar  *  guilloche,'  originating  in  a  plait  or  twist  ;  the 
'  astragal,'  a  string  of  objects  ;  the  maeander,  of  textile  deriva- 
tion ;  the  continuous  scroll,  some  forms  of  which  certainly 
spring  from  tendrils  ;  the  so-called  egg-and-dart,  of  floral 
provenance,  etc.,  etc.  These  are  important  and  much 
employed  motives  and  should  have  a  separate  heading,  so 
that  the  divisions  will  be  linear,  conventional,  floral,  zoo- 
morphic,  anthropomorphic. 

The  chief  technical   processes   involved   are  the   follow- 
ing : 1— 

1,  engraving,  incising  or  *  tracing  '  lines  in  clay,  bone  or 

ivory,  wood  or  metal  ;  when  in  a  metal  plate  these 
lines  being  sometimes  filled  in  with  a  black  com- 
position producing  what  is  known  as  niello  work  : 

2,  stamping    on    metal    certain    patterns    or    devices    or 

impressing  such  on  clay  : 

3,  beating  up  or  punching  down  patterns  or  designs  in  a 

thin  plate  of  metal  by  the  use  of  moulds  or  dies  or 
free-hand  by  the  repousse  process,  or  pressing  these 
out  in  moist  clay  : 

4,  casting  in  metal,  with  the  use  of  the  chasing  tool  or  file 

as  a  finish,  the  process  resulting  at  times  in  what  is 
known  as  c  faceting  '  : 

5,  inlaying  one  metal  in  another,  or  plating  one  metal 

over  another  : 

6,  producing  devices  or  patterns  by  soldering  portions  of 

one  metal  on  to  another  in  the  form  (a)  of  convo- 
luted wires  (filigree  work),  or  (b)  of  small  globules 
of  metal  juxtaposed  (granulated  work),  or  (c)  of 
moulded  or  embossed  wires  or  strips  to  imitate 
these  : 

1  In  the  Index  references  will  be  found  to  passages  in  the  text  in  which 
objects  illustrating  these  technical  processes  are  described. 


292  ANGLO-SAXON  ORNAMENT 

7,  overlaying  or  encrusting  metal  with  coloured  vitreous 

pastes,  or  fusing  these  into  cloisons  or  cavities  on 
or  in  metal  (encrusted,  cloisonne  and  champleve 
enamel  work)  ;  and 

8,  inserting   white  or   coloured    stones  or  similar    sub- 

stances, or  coloured  vitreous  pastes,  in  pierced 
apertures  in  metal  plates  or  in  cavities  or  compart- 
ments formed  in  or  on  the  surface  of  the  metal. 

It  will  conduce  to  clearness  if  there  be  introduced  here 
a  brief  note  on  the  probable  sources  of  some  of  the  chief 
motives  of  ornament  with  which  we  shall  have  to  deal. 

The  simple  linear  patterns,  dots,  chevrons,  and  the  like 
are  too  common  for  it  to  be  worth  while  to  trace  them  to 
any  particular  source.  Many  conventional  motives  such  as 
the  guilloche  or  the  egg-and-dart  wear  their  origin  on  their 
sleeve  and  are  obviously  derived  from  Roman  sources.  The 
close-coiled  spiral,  which  is  not  Greco-Roman,  may  have  a 
more  remote  ancestry.  This  must  be  distinguished  from  the 
well-known  Late- Celtic  device  of  the  divergent  spiral  with 
expanding  ends,  sometimes  called  the  { trumpet  pattern,'  or 
referred  to  as  *  flamboyant  scrolls,'  that  has  an  independent 
origin  and  is  a  highly  conventionalized  rendering  of  the  foliage 
ornament  of  advanced  classical  times.  This  appears  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  surroundings  (p.  475  f.)  but  is  of  course  in  origin  purely 
Celtic.  A  splendid  example  of  the  ornament  will  be  seen  on 
the  Late-Celtic  fibula  from  Aesica,  PI.  lii,  3.  The  close- 
coiled  spiral  does  not,  to  the  writer's  knowledge,  occur  in  its 
distinctive  form  in  purely  Anglo-Saxon  art  of  the  Pagan 
period,  but  PI.  lii,  5,  shows  it  worked  in  silver  and  brass  on 
iron  on  a  strap  end  in  the  Museum  at  Worms.  It  appears  in 
the  Early  Bronze  Age  in  Denmark,  PI.  cxli,  1,2  (p.  515),  and 
is  found  about  the  same  period  in  Ireland,  as  on  the  stone 
with  incised  spirals  at  the  mouth  of  the  entrance  to  the  tumulus 
at  Newgrange  by  the  Boyne,  PI.  lii,  i.     There  is  now  a  very 


LII 

facing  p.  293 


ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  ORNAMENT  AND  TECHNIQUE 


fj  6,  7,  p,  are  Continental ;  I  is  Iris h 


SPIRAL  MOTIVES  293 

general  consensus  of  opinion  that  the  spiral  motive  was  first 
brought  into  common  use  in  Egypt  and  in  the  homes  of  the 
early  so-called  Aegean  culture,  and  that  it  spread  from  there 
to  the  north-west  of  Europe  either  by  the  land  route  along 
the  valleys  of  the  Danube,  Moldau,  and  Elbe,  or  round  by 
the  ocean  ways  past  Spain  and  Britain.1  It  was  accordingly 
domesticated  in  our  own  part  of  the  world  before  the 
Romans  or  perhaps  even  the  Celts  appeared  conspicuously 
on  the  scene. 

It  is  worth  noting  here  that  a  very  common  motive  of  the 
migration  period,  concentric  circles,  may  very  likely  be  a 
degenerate  descendant  of  a  series  of  spirals.  An  intermediate 
stage  in  the  descent  is  represented  by  a  set  of  circles  with 
tangential  lines  joining  them,  a  motive  that  occurs  commonly 
on  the  so-called  '  geometrical '  or  c  Dipylon  '  vases  found  in 
Greece  and  especially  in  Attica  and  representing  the  next  stage 
in  the  history  of  vase  decoration  after  the  Mycenaean.  In 
Mycenaean  art  the  true  spiral  is  freely  used,  but  on  these 
geometrical  vases  lines  of  circles  joined  by  straight  lines 
tangential  to  them  take  the  place  of  the  spirals.  An  example 
of  this  design  on  ivory  found  in  Kent  but  of  Romano-British 
provenance  is  shown  PI.  lii,  2.  The  next  step  is  to  leave 
out  the  tangential  lines,  and  we  obtain  then  the  mere  pattern 
of  circles  disposed  over  the  field,  sometimes  with  smaller  con- 
centric circles  and  sometimes  only  with  dots  within  them, 
that  is  so  common  in  the  migration  period.  The  single  circle 
with  the  dot  is  represented,  PI.  lii,  4,  in  a  bone  buckle, 
probably  Anglo-Saxon,  in  the  Collection  of  the  Duke  of 
Northumberland  at  Alnwick  Castle,  and  concentric  circles  in 
an  interesting  little  plaque  of  the  same  material  from  Croydon 
in  the  Grange  Wood  Museum,  Thornton  Heath,  PI.  lii,  8. 

1  There  is  an  excellent  resume  of  the  discussions  on  this  subject  in 
Mr.  George  Coffey's  New  Grange  and  other  Incised  Tumuli  in  Ireland ;  the 
Influence  of  Crete  and  the  Aegean  in  the  extreme  West  of  Europe  in  early  times  ; 
Dublin,  1912. 


294  ANGLO-SAXON  ORNAMENT 

Interlacing  work,  which  it  is  natural  to  connect  with  the 
spiral  as  the  two  occur  together  so  often  on  stones  and  in 
MS.  illuminations,  is  most  probably  of  Roman  origin  and 
finds  its  source  in  the  interlacing  patterns  derived  from  the 
guilloche  that  are  found  on  Roman  mosaic  pavements.1  This 
motive  however,  though  employed  occasionally  at  rather  a  late 
date  on  the  tomb  furniture,2  becomes  of  infinitely  greater 
importance  in  the  Christian  period,  and  any  discussion  of 
the  origin  and  history  of  the  motive  will  find  a  more  suitable 
place  in  a  subsequent  volume. 

A  motive  which  may  make  a  third  with  the  spiral 
and  the  entrelac  is  the  so-called  £  chip-carving '  ornament, 
familiar  to  the  modern  world  on  Scandinavian  wood-work 
and  other  simply  adorned  industrial  products.  In  this  style 
of  enrichment  geometrical  forms  are  produced  and  combined 
into  patterns,  the  forms  being  such  as  are  naturally  created 
by  cuts  into  a  flat  surface  of  wood  when  the  knife  is  sloped 
at  an  angle  with  the  plane  operated  on.  The  forms,  as  the 
German  terms  '  Keilschnitt '  or  '  Kerbschnitt '  imply,  are 
wedge-shaped,  or  notch-like,  for  small  prisms  of  wood  are 
in  each  operation  cut  out  and  generally  leave  triangular 
sinkings  that  by  their  shape  and  combinations  are  made  to 
produce  a  decorative  effect.  Ornament  of  this  kind  occurs 
on  certain  important  objects  of  bronze  of  the  late  Roman  and 
early  migration  period,3  and  it  is  held  by  many  archaeologists 
that  it  is  merely  a  transference  from  wood,  and  that  as  the 
peoples  of  the  North  used  wood  for  their  buildings  as  well  as 
for  numerous  other  purposes  of  life,  so  they  would  develop 

1  See  Mr.  George  Coffey's  Guide  to  the  Celtic  Antiquities  .  .  .  in  the 
National  Museum,  Dublin,  p.  8  f.,  and  Mr.  Romilly  Allen's  Celtic  Art, 
p.  242  f. 

2  e.g.  on  a  series  of  bronze  buckles  specially  well  represented  in  northern 
France  and  Belgium  but  occurring  also  in  our  own  country,  see  Pll.  lxxiii, 
lxxiv  (p.  357),  and  also  in  animal  designs  (p.  329  f.). 

3  For  these  objects  and  their  historical  position  see  Chapter  x  (p.  548  f.). 


<  CHIP  CARVING'  PATTERNS  295 

characteristic  forms  of  wood  ornamentation.  It  is  a  recognized 
fact  that  the  Runic  characters  were  expressly  shaped  to  be  cut 
in  timber,  and  this  proves  the  familiar  use  among  the  ancient 
Germans  of  the  knife  on  wood.  We  must  remember  too  that 
the  wooden  buildings  of  Attila's  headquarters  in  Hungary, 
in  the  middle  of  V,  were  partly  constructed  4k  cravihoiv 
iyyXv^cov,1  'of  beams  ornamented  with  incised  sculpture,' 
and  were  probably  German  work.  Hence  we  may  be  inclined 
to  claim  these  patterns  as  native  Teutonic  products,  which 
were  in  due  course  adopted  by  the  classical  peoples  and 
transferred  to  other  material  such  as  the  bronze  objects  just 
referred  to,  some  of  which  are  certainly  of  provincial-Roman 
provenance.  On  the  other  hand  it  may  be  pointed  out  that 
these  same  *  Keilschnitt '  patterns,  in  the  form  of  triangles, 
chevrons,  sunk  stars,  and  the  like,  are  found  on  Roman  sculp- 
tured altars  of  a  fairly  early  imperial  date,  and  specimens  of 
the  kind  are  to  be  seen  in  our  own  country  at  Chester,  New- 
castle-on-Tyne,  etc.,  and  especially  in  the  church  porch  at 
Lanchester,  County  Durham,  on  a  very  fine  late  Roman  altar 
found  in  the  vicinity.  This  fact  has  led  Riegl  and  others 
to  deny  to  the  motives  any  origin  in  wood-carving  or  any 
northern  provenance,  and  to  claim  them  as  purely  classical. 
We  must  remember  however  that  from  an  early  period  of 
the  Empire  there  was  an  interpenetration  of  Germanic  and 
classical  culture  which  rendered  possible  an  influence  from 
north  to  south  as  well  as  one  in  a  northerly  direction. 
Germans  fought  in  the  Roman  army  even  under  Julius  Caesar, 
and  it  is  quite  conceivable  that  these  motives  as  used  by  the 
Romans  are  really  of  northern  origin,  for  they  are  certainly 
alien  to  the  spirit  of  classical  art  as  a  whole.  Dr.  Bernhard 
Salin  is  disposed  to  hold  to  an  origin  for  them  in  wood, 
while  Riegl's  judgement  was  necessarily  somewhat  warped  by 
his  obsession  with  the  idea  of  a  classical  origin  for  all  the 
manifestations  of  art  in  the  migration  epoch. 

1  Priscus,  De  Legatione,  63,  in  M tiller's  Fragmenla  Hist.  Graec,  iv,  89. 


296  ANGLO-SAXON  ORNAMENT 

Passing  now  to  the  more  advanced  motives,  we  may  for 
the  moment  consider  in  conjunction  floral  and  zoomorphic 
ornament.  Each  is  derived  from  the  forms  of  one  of  the 
two  great  '  kingdoms '  of  animate  nature,  and  these  two 
aspects  of  nature  appeal  to  men  in  different  stages  of  civiliza- 
tion. Man  in  the  hunter  stage  is  interested  almost  exclusively 
in  animals,  which  he  studies  minutely  with  a  view  to  their 
apprehension  or  slaughter.  Phenomena  that  have  come  to 
light  from  almost  the  very  earliest  periods  of  human  history 
show  that  the  primitive  hunter  of  the  Older  Stone  Age  not 
only  pursued  the  beasts  of  the  field  but  also  drew  and  carved 
them  in  representations  of  remarkable  spirit  and  accuracy.  In 
the  present  connection  it  does  not  matter  whether  he  did  this 
for  some  purpose  associated  with  magic  or  religion  or  from 
a  purely  artistic  impulse — the  fact  remains  that  zoomorphic 
art  is  the  natural  domain  of  the  hunter.  The  Esquimaux, 
the  Bushmen,  are  hunters  and  also  artists,  though  not  so  good 
at  animal  drawing  as  the  cave  dweller  of  old.  In  unsophisti- 
cated Switzerland  it  was  the  chamois  hunter  who  wrought  in 
the  winter  evenings  those  delicate  and  spirited  carvings  which 
travellers  of  the  last  generation  used  to  bring  home  from  the 
Oberland.  The  hunter  does  not  care  so  much  for  plants, 
but  these  are  the  special  province  of  the  agriculturalist.  It 
has  been  suggested  that  as  animal  art  begins  in  the  hunter 
stage  so  foliage  ornament  is  the  invention  of  the  men  who 
had  passed  from  the  sphere  of  venery  to  that  of  farming. 
The  fact  is  however  that  the  regular  life  of  the  tiller  of  the 
fields  with  its  constant  round  of  recurring  occupations  is 
not  nearly  so  favourable  to  the  development  of  the  artistic 
instincts  as  the  more  stirring  and  varied  existence  of  the 
hunter,  who  enjoys  moreover  when  his  larder  is  full  unbroken 
intervals  of  leisure.  Hence  the  early  agriculturalist  of  the 
neolithic  period  of  culture  does  not  seem  to  have  invented 
either  floral  ornament  or  any  other  artistic  device  of  any 
moment,   and   it    is    probable    that    floral    ornament,    though 


ABSENCE  OF  FOLIAGE  MOTIVES  297 

there  are  distinct  traces  of  it  in  the  palaeolithic  epoch  of 
hunter  life,  is  really  the  product  of  a  condition  of  society  when 
people  were  able  to  take  their  ease  in  their  surroundings,  and 
in  indulging  the  very  primitive  and  ever-present  instinct  for 
personal  adornment  used  for  the  crown  or  necklet  the  leaves 
and  flowers  of  the  woods  and  fields. 

In  their  daily  life  the  Teutonic  invaders  of  the  Empire  had 
all  passed  out  of  the  hunter  stage  and  practised  agriculture. 
They  may  have  followed  the  chase  to  keep  down  the  numbers 
of  noxious  beasts  or  for  the  pleasure  of  the  sport  which  still 
attracts  their  remote  descendants,  but  it  is  obvious  from  the 
nature  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  settlements  that  farming  was  all 
along  the  main  occupation  that  conditioned  all  social  arrange- 
ments. In  the  matter  of  art  however  they  were  particularly 
addicted  to  zoomorphic  ornament  and  showed  scarcely  a 
particle  of  interest  in  that  drawn  from  the  vegetable  kingdom. 
These  facts,  by  themselves  or  in  co-ordination  one  set  with  the 
other,  are  of  some  significance.  The  one  last  mentioned,  that 
floral  ornament  claims  little  or  no  part  in  early  Teutonic 
artistic  activity  in  the  pagan  period,  is  almost  sufficient  in 
itself  to  vindicate  the  individuality  and  independence  of 
Germanic  art.  Classical  decoration  both  among  the  Greeks 
and  Romans  made  abundant  use  of  floral  motives  and  under 
the  early  Roman  Empire  there  was  a  fresh  development  in 
this  particular,  of  which  the  Ara  Pacis  Augusti  and  kindred 
monuments  are  evidence.  Early  Christian  art,  founded  on 
classical,  also  availed  itself  freely  of  these  motives,  and  on  the 
Bewcastle  Cross  there  is  exquisite  foliage  enrichment  based  on 
a  graceful  re-presentation  of  the  vine  scrolls  on  the  '  Samian  ' 
pottery  and  Roman  funeral  monuments.  If  the  Germanic 
art  of  the  pagan  period  had  been  so  thoroughly  Roman  as 
some  archaeologists  would  have  us  believe,  it  is  inconceivable 
that  no  place  should  be  found  in  it  for  the  characteristic 
classical  foliage  motives.  As  a  fact  there  is  hardly  any  trace 
at  all  of  the  classical  acanthus  leafage  on  objects  of  Teutonic 


298  ANGLO-SAXON  ORNAMENT 

tomb  furniture  any  more  than  there  is  on  the  Bewcastle  and 
Ruthwell  Crosses,  the  only  approaches  to  it  being  the  one  or 
two  pieces  figured  on  PI.  ix  and  discussed  in  the  Chapter  on 
Coins  (p.  107),  while  the  acanthus  is  the  most  common  of  all 
Roman  ornamental  motives,  and  any  art  growing  directly  out 
of  Roman  would  infallibly  by  its  use  of  this  motive  have 
betrayed  its  origin.  We  can  see  the  truth  of  this  by  a  glance 
at  the  monuments  of  Carolingian  art,  where  in  work  inspired 
by  a  deliberate  return  to  the  antique  the  acanthus  is  every- 
where in  evidence.  This  absence  of  floral  ornament  from  the 
enrichment  of  the  objects  with  which  we  are.  concerned  is  one 
very  cogent  argument  in  favour  of  the  view  of  the  inde- 
pendence of  Germanic  art  which  is  here  maintained. 

The  other  fact,  the  Teutonic  penchant  for  zoomorphic 
ornament,  is  also  in  its  way  significant.  As  the  people  were 
not  hunters  by  profession  but  farmers,  there  is  no  ground  for 
ascribing  this  predilection  to  the  same  natural  instinct  which 
turned  the*  palaeolithic  follower  of  the  mammoth  and  the 
reindeer  into  a  clever  artist.  Nor  again  can  we  base  this 
penchant  on  the  sort  of  fellow  feeling  for  animals  so  common 
in  children,  and  natural  too  in  people  who  live  an  open-air 
life  among  the  beasts  and  birds.  A  feeling  of  this  kind,  if  it 
led  to  artistic  expression,  would  result  in  na'ive  attempts  at 
naturalistic  delineation  that  would  gradually  improve  and 
grow  more  lifelike  as  time  went  on,  as  is  the  case  with  the 
efforts  of  children  educated  under  the  Drawing  Society.  Now 
this  is  distinctly  what  we  do  not  find  in  the  animal  work  on  the 
normal  tomb  furniture  of  the  migration  period. 

As  a  fact,  the  earliest  representations  of  animals  in  Teutonic 
art,  at  any  rate  in  north-western  Europe,  exhibit  a  conventional 
not  a  naturalistic  treatment,  and  the  conventions  had  clearly 
not  been  established  among  the  Teutons  themselves  but  had 
been  taken  over  ready  made  from  a  more  advanced  people. 
The  most  conspicuous  form  is  that  of  a  crouching  or  extended 
quadruped  seen  in  profile  on  the  edge  of  some  surface  of  which 


ANIMAL  FORMS  299 

it  forms  a  sort  of  cresting,  or  else  on  the  flat  surface  itself,  and 
a  comparison  of  examples  shows  clearly  that  this  was  adopted 
from  provincial- Roman  art.  The  form  however  appears  to 
be  that  of  an  elongated  lion  or  a  leopard — in  later  heraldry 
the  two  do  not  seem  to  be  distinguished — and  it  can  only  be 
Roman  in  a  mediate  sense,  for  it  is  obvious  that  creatures  of 
the  lion  type  were  not  indigenous  in  classical  art  but  importa- 
tions from  the  East.  The  history  of  the  earliest  Greek  art 
shows  this  clearly.  Now  this  same  motive  of  the  crouching 
lionine  creature  occurs  in  Caucasian  art  that  must  have  been 
quite  independent  of  Rome,  and  at  the  London  Congress  of 
Historical  Studies  in  1 913  a  Russian  scholar  exhibited  some 
new  discoveries  of  the  kind  that  cast  a  fresh  light  on  this 
familiar  motive.  The  leopards  which,  treated  in  the  round, 
form  the  handles  of  the  open-work  golden  basket  from  the 
treasure  of  Petrossa  are  certainly  of  oriental  and  not  Roman 
origin.  See  PI.  cxlii,  5  (p.  523).  It  is  accordingly  arguable 
that  as  the  classical  peoples  derived  motives  of  this  kind 
from  the  East,  so  the  East  may  have  sent  them  up  to  the 
North- West  by  the  open  route  at  the  back  of  the  Carpathians. 
So  far  as  can  be  seen  however,  the  assimilation  of  this  motive 
by  the  Germanic  craftsmen  worked  itself  out  rather  along  the 
"line  of  the  Rhine  and  the  Danube  than  further  north,  and  as 
stated  above  it  may  be  accepted  as  a  direct  classical  derivation. 
Another  early  animal  motive  of  a  conventional  kind  is  the 
creature's  head  seen  in  profile  projecting  from  some  edge  or 
end  after  the  fashion  of  the  TrpoKpocrcros  in  early  works  of 
Greek  industrial  art.1  This  creature's  head  is  very  often 
though  not  always  that  of  a  bird,  and  it  appears  early  and  is 
abundantly  used  in  the  art  of  the  Goths  who  inhabited  the 
northern  shores  of  the  Black  Sea  during  the  first  Christian 
centuries.     This  is  the  habitat  of  the  griffin,  and  it  is  quite  a 

1  On  the  famous  Samian  bronze  bowl  of  VII  b.c.  we  are  told  irkpi^  8e 
avrov  ypvjrwv  Ke<f>aXal  TvpoKpoaa-oi  eian,  '  there  were  heads  of  griffins  pro- 
jecting from  it  all  round.'     Herodotus,  iv,  152. 


300  ANGLO-SAXON  ORNAMENT 

plausible  theory  that  it  is  the  griffin's  eagle  beak  that  is  the 
irpoKpoo-cros  of  the  early  Gothic  fibulae  and  buckles.  This 
point  is  connected  with  the  whole  question  of  the  place  of  the 
culture  of  southern  Russia  in  the  scheme  of  development  of 
Teutonic  art,  and  like  the  point  last  mentioned  this  will  form 
the  subject  of  separate  treatment  in  the  chapter  concerned 
with  the  history  of  inlaid  gold  jewellery  (p.  518  f.). 

A  third  early  animal  motive  we  have  already  come  to 
know  in  the  so-called  '  horse's  head '  at  the  foot  of  the  early 
cruciform  fibulae.  This  is  so  markedly  at  home  in  the  North 
that  many  would  regard  it  as  a  Scandinavian  invention.  This 
question  Dr.  Salin  discusses.1  He  points  out  that  in  the 
objects  from  Nydam  Moss  in  the  Museums  at  Kiel  and 
Flensburg  dating  from  about  IV  the  horse's  head  often  occurs, 
though  not  on  the  ends  of  fibulae  but  on  other  objects  from 
which  it  was  afterwards  transferred  to  the  feet  of  the  long 
brooches.  Where  it  first  originated  cannot  be  clearly  made 
out,  but  its  early,  and  in  early  times  exclusive,  appearance  in 
the  North  makes  a  northern  origin  very  probable.2 

We  have  accordingly  as  early  animal  forms  in  Germanic 
art  (1)  a  complete  quadruped  seen  in  profile,  (2)  a  head  like 
that  of  a  horse  seen  from  above,  and  (3)  a  bird-like  head  seen 
in  profile,  and  of  these  the  first  seems  to  come  from  the  Roman 
side,  the  second  from  the  Germanic  North,  the  third  from 
southern  Russia.  It  is  not  the  origin  but  the  after  develop- 
ment of  these  motives  that  makes  them  really  Teutonic.  In 
the  case  of  the  '  horse's  head '  we  have  followed  this  after- 
development  in  Anglo-Saxon  art  to  some  very  quaint  and 
extraordinary  forms.     The  bird-like  head  is  fairly  constant, 

1  Thierornamentik,  p.  186  f. 

2  'Da  wir  bisjetzt  keine  Spur  dieses  Thierkopfes  auf  sudgermanischem 
Gebiet  haben  entdecken  konnen  und  da  derselbe  erst  um  die  Mitte  des 
4  Jahrhunderts  und  alsdann  sofort  in  voller  Entwicklung  zuerst  auftritt, 
bleibt  wohl  keine  andere  Moglichkeir,  als  dass  er  eine  Neugestaltung  ist, 
die  im  Laufe  des  4  Jahrhunderts  irgendwo  auf  nordgermanischen  Gebiet 
sich  entwickelt  hat.'     ibid.,  p.  188. 


TEUTONIC  ANIMAL  ORNAMENT  301 

but  the  first  motive,  the  quadruped  in  profile,  lends  itself  to  an 
extraordinary  series  of  changes  in  following  which  we  under- 
stand how  writers  like  Drs.  Salin  *  and  Sophus  Miiller  claim 
this  animal  ornament  as  something  of  outstanding  interest 
and  as  specially  Teutonic.  The  reference  is  not  to  the  more 
or  less  completely  formed  and  consistent  quadruped  which 
appears  on  many  objects  of  early  Anglo-Saxon  art  as  a  deriva- 
tion from  the  profile  leopard,  but  to  this  creature  contorted, 
broken  up,  summarized  into  a  feature  here  and  a  limb  there, 
and  then  later  on  complicated  into  an  intricate  interlacing 
pattern.  These  creatures,  as  Sophus  Miiller  remarks,  ceasing 
to  have  any  relation  to  nature,  c  become  ornaments  and  are 
treated  as  such.  They  are  stretched  out  and  are  bent,  are 
elongated  and  shortened,  refashioned,  transmogrified,  just  as 
was  demanded  by  the  space  they  had  to  fill.  .  .  .  There 
resulted  the  grossest  disproportion  between  body  and  members, 
and  the  most  impossible  shapes  and  positions  of  head  and 
limbs.  The  jaws  were  drawn  out  like  ribbons,  or  the  front 
part  of  the  head  was  dropped  altogether  ;  one  or  more  of  the 
limbs  of  the  animal  was  bent  upwards  or  downwards,  just  as 
the  space  required.  Location  and  room  conditioned  the  form 
and  details  of  the  beast,  for  it  had  no  other  function  than  to 
fill  and  to  decorate  these.'2 

This  specially  Germanic  treatment  of  the  animal  form  does 
not  show  itself  very  early  but  comes  into  vogue  at  any  rate  in 
our  own  country  somewhere  about  the  year  500  a.d.,  and 
from  that  epoch  until  the  Carolingian  age  it  passes  through 
various  phases  of  which  there  is  a  full  treatment  in  the  classic 
work  by  Dr.  Salin  whereto  reference  is  so  often  made  in  these 
chapters.  The  previous  treatment  of  the  whole  animal  during 
V  had  been  if  not  exactly  naturalistic  yet  in  a  conventional 
style  which  preserved  the  dignity  and  specific  character  of  the 
creature  as  well  as  a  true  or  at  any  rate  a  plausible  anatomical 

1  Thierornamentik,  p.  358. 

2  Nordische  Altertkumskunde,  11,  209. 


302  ANGLO-SAXON  ORNAMENT 

structure.       The   provincial-Roman   prototypes    from    which 
these  representations  are  descended  date  from  IV. 

Anthropomorphic  ornament,  the  strongest  point  of  the 
classical  designer,  can  hardly  be  said  to  exist,  save  in  one 
modified  form,  among  the  motives  found  on  the  tomb  furni- 
ture ;  and  this  again,  as  was  the  case  with  floral  ornament,  is 
a  proof  of  the  essential  independence  of  the  form  of  art  on 
which  we  are  engaged.  The  one  form  referred  to  is  the  full- 
faced  human  head,  of  which  the  Teutonic  artist  was  rather 
fond.  This  is  specially  in  evidence  on  the  small  saucer  fibulae 
called  commonly  '  button  brooches,'  and  the  motive  will  be 
discussed  in  connection  with  these.  So  far  as  the  human 
figure  is  concerned  we  have  of  course  a  reasonably  adequate 
treatment  of  it  on  the  sceat  coins,  just  as  we  have  a  noble 
rendering  of  the  theme  on  some  of  the  carved  stones  of  the 
Christian  period.  There  however  in  both  instances  the  artist 
was  working  from  excellent  classical  models  (p.  13),  in  the 
one  case  with  Roman  coins  before  him,  in  the  other  possibly 
under  the  inspiration  of  imported  Greco-Christian  ivories. 
Here  in  the  matter  of  the  tomb  furniture  models  were 
apparently  not  to  hand,  and  the  motive  is  almost  entirely 
ignored.  Known  examples  through  the  whole  range  of  strictly 
Germanic  art  might  almost  be  counted  on  the  fingers.  In  the 
Anglo-Saxon  phase  of  that  art  which  is  our  chief  concern  one 
or  two  instances  will  presently  be  signalized,  but  they  are  of 
extreme  rarity. 

Returning  now  from  this  dissertation  on  the  origin  of  the 
ornamental  motives  in  Anglo-Saxon  tomb  furniture,  we  will 
proceed  to  consider  these  motives  from  the  artistic  and 
technical  rather  than  from  the  historical  side. 

The  first  and  simplest  form  of  Teutonic  ornamentation  has 
been  held  to  be  the  impressed  chevrons  or  zigzags  such  as 
appear  very  commonly  on  the  edges  of  the  straight  feet  of  radi- 
ating fibulae  like  PI.  xxxv,  1,  4  (p.  245).    This  pattern  filled  in 


TECHNIQUE  OF  LINEAR  PATTERNS  303 

with  '  niello '  composition  occurs  very  often  round  the  borders 
of  inlaid  disc  fibulae  of  the  '  Kentish  '  kind,  PL  cxlvi  (p.  535). 
The  technique  of  niello  is  Roman.  Another  simple  linear 
pattern  is  the  small  circle  with  or  without  a  dot  in  the  centre. 
Its  origin  has  been  already  discussed  (p.  293),  but  it  has  little 
chronological  significance  because  it  was  in  occasional  use 
from  Roman  times  to  the  Carolingian  age.  It  is  especially 
in  place  incised  in  bone  as  the  decoration  of  combs,  which 
were  treated  in  this  way  by  the  Romans  who  handed  on  the 
practice  to  their  Germanic  successors.  Quoit  fibulae  and  plain 
bronze  disc  fibulae  often  show  it,  and  so  also  do  the  plainer 
sort  of  cruciform  brooches. 

The  technique  of  these  linear  patterns  varies  with  the 
material.  When  this  is  bronze,  the  patterns  that  are  in 
intaglio — the  reverse  of  relief — are  generally  cast  with  the 
piece  not  incised  nor  chiselled  out  afterwards,  but  in  good 
work  the  cast  is  commonly  gone  over  with  the  chasing  tools 
to  sharpen  it  up  and  secure  a  more  even  surface.  The 
technique  of  the  figured  bronze  buckle  plate,  PI.  lii,  6,  of 
Burgundian  origin,  is  not  a  little  remarkable.  How  much 
was  done  in  the  casting  is  difficult  to  say.  There  is  certainly 
no  modelling  of  the  forms  as  would  inevitably  have  been  the 
case  had  the  design  been  worked  out  in  wax  or  clay  before  it 
was  moulded.  The  edges  of  the  forms  are  cut  down  straight 
to  the  ground  and  not  rounded  off*  and  the  texture  of  the 
worked  parts  is  such  that  one  would  imagine  it  all  wrought 
by  a  powerful  hand  armed  with  a  heavy  graving  tool  that  cut 
the  bronze  bodily  away.  There  is  a  sort  of  l  burr '  that 
suggests  this.  It  is  not  silver  plated,  as  Lindenschmit  says,1  but 
tinned,  and  M.  Tauxe  of  the  Musee  Rumine,  Lausanne,  who 
kindly  examined  the  piece  with  the  writer,  told  him  that  he 
had  tried  the  tinning  process  and  found  it  work  quite  easily. 
The  surface  must  be  absolutely  clean  and  heated.  Water  is 
poured  over  and  when  this  evaporates  melted  tin   is  applied 

1  Handbucb,  p.  364. 


304  ANGLO-SAXON  ORNAMENT 

and  dabbed  where  necessary  with  a  piece  of  rag.  Wherever 
plating  keeps  bright  it  is  more  likely  to  be  tin  than  silver. 

When  however  the  material  is  silver,  a  softer  metal  than 
bronze,  the  line  commonly  appears  to  be  not  incised  but 
*  traced '  after  a  fashion  familiar  to  the  amateur  brass  worker 
of  the  present  day,  that  is,  it  is  impressed  on  the  metal  by  the 
impact  of  a  blunt  chisel,  called  a  '  tracer,'  driven  along  by  the 
taps  of  a  hammer.  The  pattern  on  the  silver  penannular  quoit 
fibula  from  Alfriston,  PI.  xlix,  2,  is  not  incised  but  traced. 
The  difference  between  the  two  techniques  is  easily  seen  when 
we  note  that  the  traced  line  is  always,  accidents  apart,  of  one 
even  breadth,  whereas  the  incised  line  varies  in  width  as  well 
as  in  depth  according  to  the  amount  of  pressure  applied  to  the 
graver  by  the  hand.  The  difference  is  the  same  as  that 
between  the  etched  line  which  is  lightly  drawn  and  of  even 
thickness,  and  the  line  beginning  and  ending  thin  but  broader 
in  the  middle  that  has  been  ploughed  by  main  force  in  the 
copper  by  the  dry  point.  The  distinction  can  be  easily 
detected  by  the  eye  if  we  compare  the  lines  on  the  enlarged 
portion  of  the  Alfriston  brooch  PL  lii,  ii,  with  those  on 
PL  lii,  9,  7,  the  one  a  Roman  silver  plaque  at  Mainz  that  bears 
a  pattern  engraved  in  incised  lines  which  in  their  irregularity 
and  varying  widths  differ  markedly  from  the  broad  even  lines 
of  the  Sussex  example  ;  the  other  part  of  the  Roman  fibula 
foot,  PL  xxxviii,  2,  also  incised  with  irregular  lines.  In  both 
cases,  and  also  in  the  Alfriston  piece,  the  lines  are  filled  in 
with  a  black  composition,  i.e.  nielloed,  the  material  used  being 
according  to  the  recipes  given  by  Theophilus 1  and  Cellini 2 
a  mixture  of  silver,  lead,  and  copper  with  sulphur.  Such 
lines  are  not  always  filled  in  in  this  fashion.  There  is  no  niello 
for  instance  on  the  Sarre  brooch,  PL  xlix,  i. 

The  method  by  which  the  circles,  dots,  and  connecting 
lines  were  produced  in  ivory  or  bone,  as  on  the  combs,  may 

1  Schedula  Diversarum  Artium,  in,  xxviii. 

2  Trattato  delP  Oreficeria,  cap.  1. 


LIII 

facing  p.  305 


ILLUSTRATIONS  OF  TECHNIQUE 


/,  J,  g,  to,  are  Continental 


STAMPING  AND  EMBOSSING  305 

have  a  word.  The  plaque  PI.  lii,  2,  was  found  near  Rochester, 
Kent,  lying  between  an  urn  full  of  burnt  bones  and  some 
Roman  coins  of  1 1 1  a.d.,  so  that  its  Roman  provenance  is 
beyond  question.  The  concentric  circles  upon  it  are  cut  with 
a  truth  and  sharpness  which  suggests  the  employment  of  a 
cylindrical  saw  of  the  pattern  surgeons  use  for  trepanning. 
The  walls  of  the  cuts  do  not  however  go  straight  down,  nor 
are  the  incisions,  carefully  measured,  exactly  cylindrical.  They 
give  in  any  case  a  good  idea  of  the  skill  of  the  provincial- 
Roman  workmen.  There  is  very  good  work  too  on  PI.  liii,  4, 
a  portion  of  an  ivory  box  in  the  Museum  at  Dover,  found  in 
the  Old  Park  where  undoubted  Anglo-Saxon  objects  have 
come  to  light.  Here  compasses,  of  which  one  leg  was 
furnished  with  a  cutting  edge  must  have  been  used.  In  other 
cases,  such  as  the  curious  bone  buckle  in  the  Museum  at 
Alnwick,  PI.  lii,  4,  the  circles  are  not  quite  so  regular. 

The  technique  of  stamping  or  punching  is  greatly  employed 
in  the  metal  work  of  the  migration  period,  and  the  late 
Professor  Hampel  of  Budapest  claimed  it  as  a  Germanic 
speciality  under  the  title  '  Opus  Barbaricum.'  We  have  to 
deal  here  with  various  techniques  which  have  to  be  dis- 
tinguished, though  the  artistic  results  produced  by  them  may 
often  be  the  same.  The  blow  of  a  round  headed  punch  driven 
down  upon  soft  metal  produces  a  corresponding  round  hollow 
and  when  the  metal  is  a  solid  mass  or  sheet  of  substantial 
thickness  this  is  all,  but  when  the  sheet  is  thin  a  round  boss 
answering  to  the  hollow  is  forced  out  on  the  other  side  ;  and 
if  the  sheet  be  very  thin  and  the  metal  soft,  pressure  will  pro- 
duce the  required  effect  without  the  force  of  a  blow.  The 
work  is  best  called  '  stamped  '  or  '  punched  '  when  the  design  is 
shown  in  depression  or  '  intaglio  '  ;  '  embossed  '  or  *  in  repousse  ' 
when  the  relief  side  of  the  sheet  is  made  to  show.  In  the 
simplest  form  of  the  stamping  or  punching  technique  half 
circles,  dots,  triangles,  and  similar  devices  are  used  singly  or 
combined  into  designs  after  the  fashion  in  which  the  modern 

III  u 


3o6  TECHNICAL  PROCESSES 

bookbinder  employs  his  stamps,  and  '  matting '  tools  of  iron 
or  wood  with  triangular  or  square  ends  scored  across  in  a  sort 
of  lattice-work  pattern  are  used,  on  metal,  to  give  a  diaper-like 
effect  to  little  discs  of  gold  foil  placed  at  the  bottom  of  the 
cloisons  in  which  transparent  garnets  are  set  in  the  inlaid  gold 
jewellery  (p.  513),  and  on  clay  to  make  the  patterns  on  the 
funereal  vases  (p.  503). 

The  most  interesting  of  these  simple  linear  devices  is  that 
formed  by  a  triangle  with  a  dot  at  its  summit,  and  produced 
by  the  stamping  or  embossing  process  with  one  or  with  two 
punches.  It  occurs  on  the  base  of  the  Herpaly  shield  boss,  a 
notable  example  of  early  Germanic  metal  work  at  Budapest, 
PL  liii,  9,  10,  and  its  diffusion  is  curiously  wide,  wider  than 
is  admitted  by  Dr.  Salin  in  the  paragraph  he  has  given  to  the 
motive.1  He  notes  its  common  use  in  the  North  especially  on 
the  Scandinavian  gold  bracteates,  and  in  western  Europe  as  in 
Lorraine,  Belgium,  France  and  England,  but  he  denies  it  to 
the  Goths  and  to  Hungary.  Now  it  is  found  not  only  on  the 
Herpaly  boss  but  on  a  most  notable  Gothic  piece  discovered 
in  Hungary,  the  gold  medallion  of  the  Emperor  Gratian  from 
the  first  treasure  of  Szilagy  Somlyo,  PI.  G,  111  (p.  527).  Here 
the  barbarian  goldsmith  has  stamped  this  pattern  round  the 
Roman  medallion  though  in  so  doing  he  has  partly  defaced  the 
imperial  name,  where  it  comes  just  at  the  back  of  the  head. 
The  occurrence  of  this  device  in  the  stone  carving  of  the  tomb 
of  Theodoric  at  Ravenna  we  are  inclined  to  regard  as  a  coin- 
cidence, as  this  seems  a  case  of  direct  derivation  by  the  process 
of  degradation  from  the  classical  ornament  known  as  the 
Lesbian  Kymation.  The  Gratian  medal  dates  more  than  a 
century  before  the  tomb.  In  Anglo-Saxon  art  the  motive, 
rather  carelessly  executed,  occurs  on  a  gold  bracteate-like 
pendant  in  the  Maclean  collection  in  the  Fitzwilliam  Museum, 
Cambridge,  PI.  liii,  6,  and  more  carefully  wrought  on  a  gold 
buckle    from    the    King's    Field,    Faversham,   in    the   British 

1  Thierornamentik,  p.  158. 


ANGLO-SAXON  REPOUSSE  WORK  307 

Museum,  PI.  B,  iv  (p.  353),  middle.  There  are  of  course  many 
other  simple  punched  patterns,  as  for  example  on  the  early 
bronze  disc  fibula  from  Bifrons,  PI.  xxxvi,  6  (p.  245),  and  on 
many  buckles,  brooches,  and  girdle  hangers  on  the  plates.  The 
embossed  patterns  showing  in  relief  may  now  receive  notice. 

The  relief  effect  is  produced  by  various  means.  One  set 
of  processes  is  to  employ  ready-made  moulds,  dies,  or  stamps, 
over  which,  or  into  which,  or  between  which,  the  thin  pliable 
sheet  metal  is  pressed  till  it  take  the  shape  prescribed,  while 
a  different  and  more  artistic  process  is  to  carry  out  the  work 
free  hand,  laying  down  the  sheet  of  metal  on  some  ground 
sufficiently  firm  and  at  the  same  time  yielding  though  not  re- 
silient, and  then  beating  up  the  design  from  the  back  by 
punches  of  suitable  shapes  driven  by  the  mallet  or  hammer. 
Under  the  blows  the  metal  becomes  more  compact  and  hard 
and  has  from  time  to  time  to  be  '  annealed  '  or  softened  by 
heat.  This  process  is  a  very  familiar  one  amongst  amateurs 
and  the  nature  of  it  with  the  effects  produced  are  matters  of 
general  knowledge.  Designs  of  the  most  elaborate  and  highly 
artistic  kind  can  be  carried  out  in  it. 

It  is  a  noticeable  fact  that  repousse  work  on  sheet  metal 
in  its  more  advanced  forms  was  only  practised  by  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  to  a  very  limited  extent.  The  figure  subjects  executed 
in  repousse  on  the  Long  Wittenham  stoup  (p.  1 1 5),  and  the 
mount  of  the  drinking  horn  found  at  Strood,  Kent,  PI.  x,  1 
(p.  115),  we  have  seen  reason  to  regard  as  of  Gallo-Roman 
origin.  By  far  the  finest  example  of  repousse  work  of  the 
whole  period  found  in  this  country  is  the  famous  Ormside 
bowl,  the  pride  of  the  Museum  at  York.  This  is  in  its  way 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  examples  of  the  technique  in  exist- 
ence, and  has  been  referred  with  some  plausibility  to  an  origin 
in  Alexandria  or  some  other  flourishing  centre  of  late  antique 
and  early  Christian  art.  The  non-classical  feature  of  inlaid 
stones  for  the  eyes  of  the  birds,  and  the  appearance  in  the 
design  of  jewels  set  Teutonic  fashion,  en  cabochon,  in  circular 


308  TECHNICAL  PROCESSES 

medallions  must  on  the  other  hand  be  taken  into  account. 
In  any  case  the  bowl,  a  composite  piece,  may  be  passed  over  in 
this  place.  Later  mountings  have  been  added  to  the  original 
silver  bowl  with  its  embossed  ornament  and  its  lining  of 
gilded  copper,  while  the  exquisite  animal  and  floral  designs  on 
the  silver  have  much  more  affinity  with  the  fine  work  on 
some  of  the  Anglian  crosses  of  the  Christian  period  than  with 
anything  in  Anglo-Saxon  tomb  furniture.  Hence  considera- 
tion of  this  exceptional  artistic  treasure  may  suitably  be 
deferred. 

In  the  case  of  not  a  little  of  the  finer  Anglo-Saxon  work, 
where  the  classical  and  the  more  modern  workman  would 
probably  have  employed  the  repousse  process  the  Anglo-Saxon 
preferred  to  cast,  and  in  this  craft  he  showed  himself  a  master, 
being  able  to  cast  quite  thin  and  to  avoid  flaws  in  a  very 
creditable  manner.  This  we  see  in  the  saucer  fibulae,  in  long 
brooches,  and  in  the  bronze  bowls  some  of  which  are  cast  so 
thin  that  it  is  difficult  to  tell  them  from  the  beaten  ones.  The 
mounts  of  the  drinking  horn  from  Taplow,  Pll.  lx,  i  ;  cxi,  I 
(pp.  319,  461),  are  cast,  but  on  the  other  hand  the  portion 
of  the  rim  of  a  vessel  in  the  Dover  Museum,  from  the  Old 
Park,  Dover,  is  worked  in  repousse.  This  is  figured  in  con- 
nection with  its  ornamentation,  PL  lxviii,  i  (p.  341),  and  it 
seems  to  be  an  example  of  free-hand  embossing.  The  soft 
forms  produced  by  beating  always  differ  from  the  sharp  ones 
of  metal  cast  and  chased. 

On  the  other  hand  a  good  deal  that  passes  muster  as 
beaten  work  is  really  effected  by  the  medium  of  stamps  or 
moulds.  The  Hungarian  silver  ornaments  noticed  in  the 
Introductory  Chapter  (p.  3$)  were  beaten  over  previously 
formed  positive  moulds  of  hard  metal.  The  Devizes 
Museum x  contains  a  pair  of  terra-cotta  moulds  positive  and 
negative  between  which  Romano-British  workmen  pressed 
thin  sheets  of  soft  metal  to  the  required  shape.     What  was 

1  Catalogue  of  the  Devizes  Museum,  Part  11,  Devizes,  191 1,  plate  xxn,  no.  8. 


LIV 

facing  p.  309 


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GRANULATED  WORK  309 

the  exact  process  used  by  the  Anglo-Saxons  we  cannot  tell, 
but  the  making  of  moulds  must  have  come  easy  to  them  as 
they  turned  out  coin  dies  in  great  profusion.  The  thin, 
circular  pendants  of  gold  called  c  bracteates,'  which  occur  in 
Kent  and  are  distributed  very  sparingly  over  a  good  part  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  area,  were  struck  from  moulds,  for  two 
pieces  are  sometimes  found  that  have  been  stamped  from  the 
same  die.  The  same  is  the  case  with  the  ornamented  plates 
of  gilded  bronze  used  for  the  face  of  the  *  applied '  brooches. 
An  examination  of  these  shows  that  they  were  not  beaten  up 
free  hand  but  produced  by  a  more  mechanical  process.  Take 
for  example  the  set  from  Kempston,  PI.  xlvii,  i  (p.  275). 
The  second  row  from  the  bottom,  the  two  detached  plates  at 
the  extremities  of  the  next  row  above,  and  the  left  hand  end 
piece  in  the  lowest  row,  all  show  the  motive  of  the  cross  with 
a  full-faced  human  head  on  each  arm  of  it.  Five  of  them  are 
struck  from  the  same  mould,  and  the  other  two,  those  on  the 
left  of  rows  one  and  two  from  the  bottom,  though  agreeing 
with  the  others  in  the  general  design,  are  together  struck  from 
a  different  mould.  On  the  whole  it  seems  clear  that  the 
Anglo-Saxon  craftsman  had  no  great  penchant  for  the  re- 
pousse process. 

Round  pearls  of  gold  soldered  down  one  beside  the  other 
in  a  line  or  disposed  ornamentally  over  a  surface,  in  what  is 
known  as  granulated  work,  are  much  employed  in  his  finer 
operations  by  the  barbarian  as  by  the  classical  and  oriental 
goldsmith,  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  gold  wire  bent  into 
patterns  or  plaited  in  three  strands  and  soldered  down  in  the 
fashion  of  filigree  work,  on  to  a  ground.  The  border  of  the 
Gratian  medallion  PI.  G,  in,  shows  examples  of  both.  It  was 
very  common  however  even  in  productions  of  a  fine  quality  to 
simulate  pure  granulated  work  either  by  the  repousse  process, 
a  narrow  strip  of  gold  being  beaten  from  the  back  into  a  row 
of  projecting  bosses  touching  each  other  so  as  to  imitate  a  row 
of  round  globules,  or  else  by  moulding  a  solid  wire  into  a 


3io  TECHNICAL  PROCESSES 

continuous  beading,  as  is  the  case  in  the  small  pendant  from 
the  Maclean  collection  in  the  Fitzwilliam  Museum,  Cambridge, 
PL  Liu,  7.  It  is  useless  to  quote  this  as  if  it  were  specially 
'  barbarian  '  and  to  employ  it  to  disparage  the  craftsmanship  of 
the  northern  peoples  in  comparison  with  the  finer  work  of  the 
Greeks  and  Etruscans,  for  the  cheaper  processes  occur  side  by 
side  with  the  more  recherche  one  in  some  of  the  finest  wrought 
gold  jewellery  from  southern  Russia  in  the  Hermitage.  The 
beautiful  Greek  ear  pendant  PI.  liii,  i,  has  a  necklet  of 
separate  grains  each  soldered  down,  but  the  band  at  the  bottom 
of  the  tiara  is  moulded  wire  and  that  which  finishes  the  piece 
below  is  in  the  repousse  technique.  These  and  other  methods 
of  manipulating  gold  to  decorative  purposes  were  used  by  the 
Etruscans  and  Romans  as  well  as  by  the  Greeks,  and  it  is 
probable  that  imported  examples  from  Etruria,  which  were  well 
enough  known  on  the  trade  routes  through  central  Europe  in 
the  pre-Christian  centuries,  taught  the  Celtic  and  Germanic 
peoples  the  technique  even  before  the  Roman  period.  When 
Roman  wares  were  freely  introduced  into  the  far  north,  as  was 
the  case  in  the  first  Christian  centuries,  examples  would  be 
multiplied,  and  PI.  liii,  3,  shows  a  piece  of  Roman  gold  work 
found  in  Sweden  in  the  form  of  an  eagle,  where  the  soldering 
down  of  grains  is  carried  out  in  a  somewhat  coarse  fashion. 

In  V  the  Scandinavian  peoples  developed  on  these  models 
an  extraordinary  skill  in  fine  gold  work,  illustrated  especially 
by  the  splendid  neck  ornaments  of  gold  in  the  Museum  at 
Stockholm,  of  V,  shown  on  PH.  liv,  lv,  in  which  every  con- 
ceivable process  of  fine  goldsmithing  is  employed  to  carry  out 
ornamental  motives  of  the  quaintest  and  most  varied  kind.1 
Even  earlier  than  this,  in  IV,  the  gilded  silver  fibulae  from 
Sackrau,  PI.  xxxviii  (p.  251),  exhibit  a  technique  quite  equal 
to  the  classical  standard.  On  PI.  xxxviii,  4,  the  separate  grains 
are  soldered  down  with  the  utmost  precision  and  neatness,  and 
the  finish  of  the  pieces  is  admirable.  We  shall  not  be  surprised 
1  Montelius,  Kulturgeschichte  Scbwedens,  p.  222. 


LVI 

facing  p.  3  1 1 


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FILIGREE  WORK  311 

accordingly  to  find  the  Anglo-Saxon  goldsmith  achieving 
excellent  results  in  these  processes  of  fine  metal  work  and 
some  further  demonstration  of  his  skill  will  be  given  later  on 
in  connection  with  his  work  in  inlays  to  which  special  attention 
will  have  to  be  devoted  (p.  512  f.).  Here  it  may  be  noted  that 
the  soldering  down  of  the  separate  grains  does  not  often 
occur,  but  we  see  it  represented  in  one  of  the  best  pieces  of 
Anglo-Saxon  gold  work  known,  an  ornamented  dagger 
pommel  of  VII  work  found  near  Windsor,  one  of  the  gems 
of  the  collection  of  the  late  Sir  John  Evans  that  Sir  Arthur 
Evans  has  presented  to  the  Ashmolean.  It  is  shown  on  a 
greatly  enlarged  scale  on  PI.  lvi.  The  design  consists  in 
two  intertwined  serpents,  the  heads  of  which  it  is  interesting 
to  compare  with  similar  heads  which  we  find  on  the  sceattas, 
e.g.,  PI.  viii,  5,  (p.  99).  Their  tails  disappear  down  each 
other's  throats.  A  thin  twisted  cable  of  gold  is  twined  in 
and  out  between  them  and  carries  bunches  of  berries,  the 
grains  representing  these  being  each  soldered  down  separately 
into  its  place. 

In  general  the  pearl  borders  which  occur  so  often  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  gold  work  are  made  with  moulded  wires,  not  by  means 
of  the  separate  grains.  A  central  strip  with  larger  grains  and 
two  side  strips  with  smaller  grains  that  border  it  is  found 
on  the  best  specimens  of  the  Kentish  disc  fibulae  and  else- 
where, forming  conventional  animals  or  scrolls.  PI.  liii,  2, 
shows  an  enlarged  piece  where  the  central  strip  has  partly 
come  away,  showing  the  technique.  Plaits  formed  of  gold 
wires  twined  together  and  soldered  down  on  a  ground  often 
appear,  and  the  effect  of  them  in  cheaper  work  is  imitated  by 
casting  or  the  repousse  process.  The  genuine  technique  is 
well  shown  on  a  pretty  pendant  in  gold  found  at  Twickenham 
and  recently  presented  by  Sir  Hercules  Read  to  the  British 
Museum  collection,  PL  liii,  8,  and  the  imitated  technique  on 
a  late  gold  ring  from  Bossington,  Stockbridge,  Hants,  in  the 
Ashmolean,  PI.  liii,  5. 


312  STYLES  OF  ORNAMENT 

What  we  are  concerned  with  in  this  place  is  not  only  the 
techniques,  but  also  the  styles  of  ornament  for  which  they  were 
used  and  the  chronology  of  these.  Enough  has  been  said  of 
this  fine  gold  work  to  show  that  we  might  expect  to  find  it 
employed  early,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact,  like  the  garnet  inlays, 
it  produces  its  chief  monuments  in  the  latter  part  of  VI  and  in 
VII,  and  a  somewhat  empty  and  straggling  kind  of  filigree 
work  both  here  and  in  France  is  a  sign  of  a  quite  late  date, 
in  the  latter  part  of  VII,  if  not  in  VIII.  For  example  the  sword 
handle  from  Cumberland  PI.  xxv,  9  (p.  209),  is  ornamented 
with  loose  curls  of  filigree  that  are  of  late  character,  and  such 
filigree  is  a  constant  feature  of  the  later  Merovingian  incrusted 
gold  work  where  the  stones  or  pastes  are  mounted  '  en  cabochon' 
and  widely  spaced  over  a  field  covered  with  convolutions  of 
filigree  work.  For  illustrations  of  this  later  filigree  work  at  home 
and  abroad  see  PH.  xxv,  9  ;  cxlvii,  i,  2  (p.  537). 

Next  to  the  cast,  traced,  stamped  or  embossed  linear 
devices  and  the  granulated  and  filigree  work  may  be  taken 
the  conventional  patterns  of  classical  origin.  The  use  of 
these  is  a  distinctly  early  symptom  and  they  are  of  greater 
chronological  value  than  the  motives  hitherto  discussed.  A 
class  of  objects  on  which  these  motives  are  specially  in  evidence 
is  that  of  the  saucer  and  applied  fibulae  the  origin  and  mor- 
phology of  which  have  already  been  discussed  (p.  275  f.). 
This  particular  product  we  have  seen  to  be  essentially  English 
(p.  277).  Its  distribution  in  England  is  a  matter  of  much 
interest.  It  used  to  be  considered  specially  West  Saxon,  but 
Mr.  Leeds  in  the  paper  already  referred  to  (ibid.)  found  no 
difficulty  in  widening  greatly  the  limits  of  its  provenance,  and 
in  showing  that  it  was  as  much  at  home  in  Anglian  surround- 
ings in  Cambridgeshire  as  in  its  supposed  native  haunts  in  the 
upper  valley  of  the  Thames.  It  can  even  be  found  wider 
afield  than  was  admitted  in  his  paper  of  1912.  He  notes 
examples  from  the  West  Saxon  counties  of  Berks,  Bucks, 
Oxon,  Hants,  Wilts,  Gloster,  Worcester  ;  from  Surrey,  Kent, 


LVII 

facing  p.  3 1 3 


APPLIED  AND  SAUCER  BROOCHES 


i,  2,  6,  natural  size  ;  5,  7,  somewhat  reduced  ;   3,  4,  much  reduced 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  SAUCER  BROOCHES         313 

and  Sussex  ;  from  Bedfordshire,  Warwickshire,  Cambridgeshire, 
Leicestershire,  Hunts,  Northants,  Rutland,  Lincolnshire  ;  from 
Yorkshire  and  from  Suffolk.  To  these  counties  may  be  added 
Essex,  for  two  good  examples  of  the  applied  kind  were  found 
in  Barrow  Field,  Kelvedon,  near  Colchester,  and  are  now,  with 
others  that  have  lost  their  plates,  in  the  Museum  of  that  City. 
Though  not  an  exclusive  West  Saxon  speciality  the  saucer  and 
applied  brooch  is  yet  in  the  main  confined  to  the  southern 
Midland  districts,  with  the  addition  of  Sussex  the  inhabitants 
of  which  seem  to  have  had  a  liking  for  it.  The  Yorkshire 
example,  apparently  the  base  of  an  applied  brooch  that  has 
lost  its  plate,1  is  not  very  certain.  Only  one  occurred  in 
Lincolnshire,  and  that  at  the  south-western  extremity  of  the 
county  nearest  the  Midlands,  while  there  are  none  noted  from 
Notts,  Stafford,  and  Derby.  East  Anglia  only  furnishes  one, 
from  Icklingham  in  Suffolk  close  to  the  border  of  Cambridge- 
shire. The  facts  in  Kent  are  remarkable.  One  or  two  very 
poor  specimens  of  the  saucer  form  and  a  couple  of  bases  of 
applied  brooches  were  found  at  Bifrons,  PI.  xxxvi,  but  the 
richly  endowed  cemeteries  of  eastern  Kent,  Ozengell,  Sarre, 
Gilton,  Kingston,  Sibertswold,  save  in  one  case,  were  entirely 
destitute  of  this  piece  of  furniture,  and  except  three  from 
Faversham  almost  all  the  few  specimens  from  the  county 
came  to  light  in  the  northern  and  western  parts,  where  the 
cemeteries  as  we  shall  see  reason  to  believe  are  Thames  valley 
cemeteries  which  probably  have  a  different  origin  and  history 
from  the  regular  Jutish  settlements.  Hence  though  we 
cannot  now  say,  as  it  used  to  be  said,  that  the  presence  or 
absence  of  the  saucer  brooch  marks  the  difference  between 
Saxon  and  Anglian  regions  there  is  some  ethnical  significance 
in  the  dearth  of  examples  in  Jutish  Kent.  It  should  be  added 
that  all  this  does  not  apply  to  the  particular  form  called  the 
1  button '  brooch,  which  is  pretty  widely  distributed  among  the 
southern  counties  including  Kent. 

1  Akerman,  Pagan  Saxondom,  p.  17  and  pi.  vm,  2,  3. 


3H  MOTIVES  OF  ORNAMENT 

The  comparatively  wide,  though  at  the  same  time  limited, 
distribution  of  the  saucer  brooch,  as  well  as  its  character  which 
invited  to  it  enrichment,  makes  it  a  very  suitable  form  in 
which  to  study  the  different  kinds  of  Anglo-Saxon  ornament 
that  is  the  subject  now  before  us.  Great  assistance  in  this 
matter  has  been  received  from  the  paper  by  Mr.  Thurlow 
Leeds  already  referred  to. 

Conventional  ornament,  as  already  observed,  is  well  re- 
presented here.  In  almost  every  case  it  is  a  modification  of 
classical  forms  as  these  were  presented  to  the  eyes  of  the 
Teutonic  invader  in  Roman  mosaic  pavements,  the  enrichment 
of  Roman  altars,  and  the  details  of  Roman  buildings. 

The  guilloche,  a  very  familiar  pattern  in  the  mosaics,  occurs 
as  the  border  of  an  important  applied  brooch  in  the  British 
Museum  from  Fairford,  Gloucestershire,  PI.  lvii,  i,  the  inner 
ornament  of  which  is  certainly  quite  early.  It  also  occurs 
wrought  in  cast  and  chased  bronze  on  a  buckle  of  early  date 
found  at  Broadstairs  and  now  preserved  there,  and  on  some  of  the 
gilded  bronze  appliques  from  Buttsole  near  Eastry,  PI.  xxiv,  2 
(p.  203).  Lest  however  we  should  assume  that  the  guilloche 
may  be  always  trusted  as  a  mark  of  early  date  we  may  see  it 
PI.  lvii,  2,  on  a  pair  of  brooches  found  in  191 2  at  Frilford, 
Berks,  where  it  is  combined  with  the  disjointed  members  of 
animals  that  betoken  a  period  late  in  VI. 

Mr.  Leeds  refers  in  his  paper  to  a  '  starlike  or  catherine- 
wheel  motive  with  recurved  points  or  arms  '  as  an  example  of 
which  he  quotes  the  Upton  Snodsbury  brooch  at  Worcester 
shown  here  PI.  lvii,  3.  This  is  probably  a  degeneration  of 
the  guilloche,  and  this  origin  is  betrayed  by  the  brooches 
shown  PI.  lvii,  4,  a  pair  from  Mildenhall,  Wilts,  in  the 
Museum  at  Devizes.  The  ornament  round  the  circle  here 
is  obviously  a  disintegrated  guilloche  and  it  might  easily  lead 
on  to  a  treatment  such  as  that  in  the  neighbouring  piece. 

The  star  is  a  conventional  motive  common  in  Roman  work 
as  on  the  carved  altars,  that  occurs  often  on  the  saucer  brooches, 


SAUCER  AND  BUTTON  BROOCHES 


i,  natural  size  j  3,  4,  6,  7,  approximately  natural  size  ;  5,  slightly  reduced 


ORNAMENT  ON  SAUCER  BROOCHES  315 

and  when  it  is  treated  in  sharp  decided  fashion  it  is  evidence 
of  early  date,  but  this  evidence  is  of  course  rendered  nugatory 
when  on  the  same  piece  occur  motives  that  are  notoriously  of 
a  later  epoch.  Thus  of  the  two  examples  on  PI.  lvii,  6,  7, 
the  first  from  Mitcham,  Surrey,  may  be  quite  early,  even 
about  500  a.d.  a  date  which  agrees  with  the  general  char- 
acter of  the  finds  on  the  site,  whereas  No.  7,  from  Fairford, 
Gloucestershire,  though  more  crisply  wrought,  proclaims  itself 
as  at  least  of  the  latter  part  of  VI  owing  to  the  disjointed 
animal  forms  in  the  outer  circle. 

A  conventional  motive  of  common  occurrence  on  the 
brooches .  consists  in  a  series  of  horizontal  lines  crossed  at 
intervals  by  a  set  of  vertical  ones  and  the  idea  of  this  has 
probably  been  taken  from  the  sacrificial  fillet  of  the  Romans 
which  may  be  seen  carved  on  Roman  altars.  PI.  lvii,  5, 
shows  it  associated  with  early  motives  on  a  pair  of  saucer 
brooches,  2  in.  in  diameter,  from  Horton  Kirby  in  North 
Kent  now  in  the  K.  A.  S.  collection  at  Maidstone.  Still  better 
is  it  seen,  especially  in  the  centre,  on  a  large  example  3^  in.  in 
diameter  from  Ashendon,  Bucks,  at  Audley  End,  where  the 
introduction  of  the  Kentish  fashion  of  garnet  inlays  betokens 
a  date  somewhere  near  600  a.d.,  PL  lviii,  i. 

The  alternation  of  circular  or  oval  forms  with  groups  of 
vertical  lines  is  probably  a  reminiscence  of  the  classical  egg- 
and-dart.  We  shall  find  it  on  an  early  example  at  Reading, 
PI.  lviii,  5,  and  it  may  be  recognized  also  on  two  of  the 
Kempston  applied  fibulae  in  the  lowest  line  of  No.  1  on 
PI.  xlvii  (p.  275).  Moreover  it  may  be  surmised  that  the 
ornament  consisting  only  in  a  repetition  of  the  verticals  has 
ultimately  the  same  origin.  This  occurs  on  an  interesting  pair 
of  brooches  at  Audley  End,  PI.  lviii,  2,  from  Linton  Heath, 
Cambridgeshire,  (?),  presenting  another  delightful  illustration  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  craftsman's  method  of  work.  The  two  form 
a  pair  and  are  evidently  meant  to  correspond,  but  the  designer 
cannot  repeat  himself,  and  in  the  circle  next  within  that  filled 


3i6  MOTIVES  OF  ORNAMENT 

by  the  vertical  lines  there  are  rather  unusual  scroll  patterns,  in 
one  of  which  the  free  ends  of  the  curls  point  inwards  while  in 
the  other  they  are  directed  towards  the  exterior.  This  pattern 
introduces  us  to  an  important  motive  specially  in  evidence  on 
the  saucer  brooches,  the  spiral  scroll,  of  which  a  good  example, 
ringed  with  the  vertical  lines,  from  the  recent  finds  at  Alfriston, 
Sussex,  is  shown  PI.  lix,  i.  The  piece  is  at  Lewes.  A  similar 
brooch  from  Mitcham,  Surrey,  is  on  PL  lix,  No.  6,  and 
examples  are  to  be  found  wherever  the  brooches  occur.  What 
is  the  explanation  of  this  motive  ? 

We  shall  probably  be  right  in  referring  it  back  to  the 
classical  acanthus  scroll  and  in  treating  it  as  in  its  origin  a  plant 
motive,  though  as  we  see  it  on  the  brooches  it  has  been  so 
conventionalized  as  to  lose  all  floral  character.  So  long  as  the 
motive  is  reminiscent  of  its  source,  as  it  is  when  used  by  the 
classical  artist,  we  always  find  little  twigs  or  tendrils  given  off 
at  intervals  from  the  main  scrolls.  A  good  example  is  seen 
on  PI.  xxxiii  (p.  243)  in  the  ornament  above  the  figure  of 
Roma  on  No.  3.  In  the  scroll  as  employed  by  the  Teutonic 
craftsman  these  occur  very  seldom  but  the  fact  of  their  occa- 
sional appearance  is  sufficient  to  indicate  the  floral  origin  of 
the  ornament.  In  Anglo-Saxon  art  such  exceptional  treatment 
of  the  motive  occurs  on  the  highly  important  equal  armed 
fibulae  already  noticed  (p.  271).  The  Kempston  example 
PI.  xxxvii,  7  (p.  247)  does  not  show  it,  but  a  large  and  hand- 
some piece  now  at  Audley  End,  a  product  of  the  Little 
Wilbraham  explorations  in  Cambridgeshire,1  exhibits  it  to  full 
advantage.  As  used  on  the  bow,  see  PI.  cliv,  4  (p.  561),  the 
ornament  shows  no  plant  character  but  on  the  head  and  foot, 
if  the  parts  are  so  to  be  termed,  the  tendrils  are  freely  dis- 
played in  true  classical  fashion. 

Till  the  other  day  it  would  have  been  hard  to  find  parallels 
to  this  distinctively  floral  ornament  on  any  objects  of  Anglo- 

1  Described  in  Neville's  Saxon  Obsequies.     The  piece  in  question  will  be 
found  figured  PI.  cliv,  4  (p.  561). 


LIX 

facing  p.  317 


SAUCER  BROOCHES,  ETC.,  WITH  SCROLL  PATTERNS 


1,  7,  enlarged  about  one-half 


THE  SPIRAL  SCROLL  317 

Saxon  tomb  furniture,  though  a  curious  quoit  fibula  of  square 
form  from  High  Down,  Sussex,  gives  indication  of  it,  but  the 
finds  of  1 91 2  at  Alfriston  in  Sussex  included  a  piece  of  rare 
interest  and  beauty  on  which  delicate  tendrils  curl  about  in 
graceful  fashion.  It  has  been  figured  PI.  xlix,  2  (p.  281)  and 
noticed  from  the  points  of  view  of  form  and  technique.  It 
has  a  pierced  and  vandycked  edge  and  an  '  S '  shaped  pattern 
stamped  on  the  band  next  the  outer  border,  but  the  chief 
ornament  is  the  foliage  scroll  with  the  characteristic  offshoots. 

For  floral  ornament  proper  with  indication  of  the  shape  of 
leaves  we  have  to  go  to  one  or  two  quite  exceptional  pieces 
already  figured  and  discussed  in  connection  with  similar 
motives  on  the  coins,  Pll.  v,  12  ;  ix,  4,  6  (p.  103).  The  writer 
really  knows  of  very  little  else  of  the  kind  found  in  any  of  the 
presumably  pagan  cemeteries,  and  the  significance  of  the  absence 
of  these  motives  from  the  tomb  furniture  has  been  already 
noticed  (p.  297). 

To  return  to  the  spiral  scroll,  used  without  indication  of 
its  floral  character,  as  is  the  case  on  the  saucer  fibulae,  it  forms 
the  characteristic  adornment  of  a  class  of  objects  of  great 
historical  importance  represented  in  this  country  though  far 
more  abundantly  abroad.  These  objects  are  bronze  buckles  that 
appear  to  have  been  commonly  worn  as  part  of  a  military  equip- 
ment and  are  found  in  the  graves  of  soldiers  who,  whether  Roman 
or  barbarian  in  origin,  served  in  the  imperial  armies  of  IV. 
The  archaeological  interest  of  these  objects  is  very  great  and  they 
will  be  dealt  with  at  length  in  another  connection  (p.  548  f.). 
Here  we  are  only  concerned  with  their  enrichment,  in  which 
spiral  scrolls  are  used  to  cover  a  surface.  The  relation  between 
the  single  scroll  and  the  scroll  employed  to  cover  a  surface 
extending  in  breadth  as  well  as  in  length  is  the  same  as  that 
between  the  guilloche  proper,  as  a  long  narrow  plaited  band, 
and  the  panel  of  interlacing  work  where  the  plaits  are  multi- 
plied so  as  to  cover  an  extended  area.  In  classical  art  proper, 
e.g.,  in  Roman  mosaics,  these  panels  of  interlacing  work  occur 


3i8  MOTIVES  OF  ORNAMENT 

at  home  as  well  as  abroad,  but  the  use  of  the  spiral  scroll  for 
a  similar  purpose  is  not  classical  and  belongs  to  that  style 
compounded  of  Roman  and  barbarian  elements  that  is  called 
'  provincial-Roman.'  A  notable  bronze  buckle  found  in  Smith- 
field,  London,  PI.  cli,  i  (p.  557)  exhibits  the  motive,  but  for 
the  moment  we  must  content  ourselves  with  the  illustration  of 
it  on  an  object  already  noticed,  the  scabbard  mount  of  the 
sword  found  at  Brighthampton,  Oxfordshire,  PI.  xxvn,  7 
(p.  221).     PI.  lix,  7,  shows  the  ornament  on  a  larger  scale. 

The  work  here,  as  on  the  saucer  fibulae  with  the  same 
pattern,  is  cast  work  with  a  certain  finish  and  sharpness  added 
by  the  chasing  tool.  The  fibulae  are  strongly  gilded  and 
some  of  those  found  quite  recently  at  Alfriston,  Sussex,  are 
brilliantly  fresh  and  show  not  a  trace  of  surface  corrosion. 
PI.  lix,  1,  is  an  example.  Sir  Arthur  Evans  notes  that  the 
gilding  on  Teutonic  fibulae  is  of  sterling  quality,  whereas  '  the 
gilding  of  the  Roman  fibulae  is  generally  of  the  most  cheap 
and  perishable  nature.'1  The  process  is  thus  described  by  a 
first-rate  technical  authority  Professor  W.  Gowland.  It  was 
'  water  gilding,  a  process  of  great  antiquity  as  shown  by  dis- 
coveries in  the  Japanese  dolmens.  The  object  was  first  care- 
fully polished  and  rubbed  with  mercury  ;  thin  gold  was  then 
laid  on  and  pressed  down,  the  mercury  being  subsequently  volati- 
lized, and  the  gold  fixed  by  heating  to  redness.' 2  It  may  be 
noticed  here  that  besides  gold  and  silver  tin  was  largely  used 
for  the  coating  of  other  metals.  Gilding  is  found  commonly 
applied  to  both  bronze  and  silver  and  occasionally  to  iron.3 
Abroad,  silver,  it  is  curious  to  note,  is  comparatively  rarely 
found  plated  over  bronze,*  but,  in  Germanic  work  generally, 

1  Archaeologia,  lv,  190.  2  Troc.  Soc.  Ant.,  2  Ser,  xxi,  37. 

3  There  is  an  iron  spear  head  found  at  Durham  and  preserved  in  the  cathe- 
dral library  that  has  traces  of  gilding  on  it,  but  it  is  of  the  Danish  period. 

4  fLes  Francs  incrustaient  quelquefois,  mais  le  plus  souvent  ils  pla- 
quaient  l'argent,  non  sur  le  cuivre  ou  le  bronze,  mais  sur  le  fer,  et  il  n'est 
pas  a  ma  connaissance  qu'on  ait  jamais  trouvd  une  boucle  de  bronze  incrustee 
on  damasquinee  d'argent  dans  un  cimetiere  Franc,'  Pilloy,  Etudes,  \,  277. 


LX 

facing  p.  319 


HUMAN  FORM  AND  FACE  IN  ORNAMENT 


J,  4,  J,  8,  g,  are  Continental 


ANTHROPOMORPHIC  ORNAMENT  319 

very  frequently  over  iron.  In  Anglo-Saxon  England  we  have 
seen  that  the  large  iron  buckles  on  which  the  Franks  and 
Burgundians  displayed  their  skill  in  plating  are  conspicuous 
by  their  absence,  so  that  there  is  not  so  much  silver  plating 
on  iron  here  as  on  the  Continent.  On  bronze,  both  at  home 
and  abroad,  what  appears  to  be  silver  is  as  often  as  not  in 
effect  tin,  but  silver  plating  on  bronze  undoubtedly  occurs 
among  Anglo-Saxon  technical  processes,  and  instances  will  be 
noticed  later  on. 

The  technique  by  which  were  produced  the  figures  of 
animals  round  the  chape  of  the  Brighthampton  sword, 
PL  xxvii,  8  (p.  221),  is  not  easy  to  determine.  The  animals 
are  apparently  in  gold,  the  ground  is  silver,  but  the  one 
metal  is  not  inlaid  in  the  other.  The  process  seems  to  have 
been  one  of  plating,  and  there  is  some  indication  that  the 
outlines  were  reinforced  by  an  incised  line.  The  style  of 
work  is  in  this  country  of  the  rarest  possible  kind,  but  it 
occurs  abroad  and  is  always  an  early  indication. 

While  under  the  heading  floral  ornament  there  is  as  we 
have  seen  little  enough  to  be  said,  the  contrary  is  the  case  with 
the  ornament  known  as  zoomorphic.  Animal  forms  play  a 
great  part  in  the  styles  of  enrichment  with  which  the  student 
of  Anglo-Saxon  antiquities  has  to  deal,  and  upon  this  subject 
there  has  been  much  discussion  and  controversy.  The  human 
form  and  face  naturally  take  precedence. 

It  was  pointed  out  (p.  302)  that  the  human  figure  hardly 
makes  its  appearance  at  all  on  the  objects  found  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  graves,  but  that  the  human  head  is  much  in  evidence. 
One  or  two  curious  examples  of  the  use  of  the  whole  figure, 
treated  of  course  in  the  most  summary  fashion,  may  here  be 
introduced. 

The  mounting  round  the  rim  of  the  Taplow  horn  has 
just  been  mentioned  as  an  example  of  cast  work  where  em- 
bossed sheet  metal  might  have  been  expected.  PI.  cxi,  1 
(p.  461)  gives  a  view  of  it  and  PI.  lx,  1,  a  portion  on  a  larger 


320  MOTIVES  OF  ORNAMENT 

scale.  The  human  heads  in  relief  dividing  the  continuous 
band  of  ornament  are  of  course  obvious.  An  examination  of 
the  work  on  the  continuous  band  to  the  right  of  the  head  in 
the  detailed  photograph  will  show  that  we  have  here  to  deal 
with  an  attempt  at  the  representation  of  the  human  bust,  and 
the  same  motive  has  been  employed  to  fill  the  triangular 
spaces  on  the  projecting  points  below  this  band.  The  clou 
of  the  design  is  the  human  hand  represented  four  times  in 
these  two  spaces  with  unmistakable  four  fingers  and  a  thumb. 
The  arm  is  also  quite  clearly  shown.  With  this  as  a  guide 
we  can  recognize,  by  its  very  conspicuous  eye,  close  up  against 
the  projecting  full-faced  head,  a  face  in  profile,  perhaps 
bearded,  surmounted  by  a  helmet  which  has  at  the  back  of  it 
a  sort  of  crest  or  plume.  A  similar  representation  comes  at 
the  broad  end  of  the  triangular  piece,  and  the  pointed  end 
of  this  is  filled  with  a  second  bent  arm  and  hand.  A  hand 
comes  also  beside  the  central  rosette  on  the  continuous  band, 
but  the  rest  of  the  forms  here  do  not  lend  themselves  readily 
to  explanation,  and  some  of  them  are  apparently  the  same 
forms  that  are  used  elsewhere  in  animal  ornament.  Such 
forms  would  be  specially  familiar  to  the  designer,  and  might 
easily  be  used  to  eke  out  his  slender  stock  of  anthropomorphic 
motives.  An  example  of  a  somewhat  similar  kind  on  a  saucer 
brooch  from  Barrington,  Cambs,  was  noticed  by  Mr.  Leeds 
in  Archaeologia,  lxiii,  p.  176  and  pi.  xxvn,  2.  It  was  dated 
by  him  in  the  first  half  of  VI,  but  in  view  of  the  established 
date  for  the  Taplow  burial  of  about  600  a.d.,  and  of  the  late 
character  of  the  zoomorphic  ornament  in  the  centre  of  the 
Barrington  brooch  it  should  be  placed  half  a  century  later. 
A  portion  is  shown  PI.  lx,  6. 

A  more  ambitious  attempt  embracing  the  whole  of  the 
form  may  with  a  little  imagination  be  discerned  on  the  foot 
of  one  of  the  handsome  ornate  square-headed  fibulae  found  in 
1 91 2  at  Alfriston,  Sussex,  PI.  lx,  2.  The  whole  fibula  will 
be  found  represented,  PI.  lxvii,  2  (p.  339).     Here  there  is 


THE  HUMAN  FULL-FACED  HEAD  321 

no  doubt  that  the  two  eyes  in  the  upper  part,  just  above  the 
wire,  mean  a  human  face  in  front  view,  for  such  a  face  clearly 
made  out  is  a  common  feature  in  such  a  position  ;  what 
underlies  the  representation  between  this  head  and  the  end  of 
the  foot  of  the  fibula  may  be  held  by  many  quite  uncertain, 
but  to  the  present  writer  there  is  great  significance  in  the 
vertical  division  into  two  corresponding  halves  which  occurs 
in  the  lower  portion  of  the  space  occupied  and  suggests  the 
two  legs,  while  in  the  upper  portion  there  are  two  armlike 
pendant  shapes  at  the  end  of  one  of  which  there  appears  a 
rudimentary  hand.  Save  at  the  left-hand  side  at  the  bottom 
where  there  is  something  like  the  hind  leg  of  a  quadruped, 
there  is  nothing  in  the  various  forms  within  the  space  under 
consideration  that  reminds  one  of  the  parts  of  animals  so 
familiar  on  other  objects  of  the  period. 

We  pass  on  now  to  the  subject  of  the  human  head.  Pre- 
sented in  front  view  it  is  a  very  characteristic  motive,  especially 
on  the  so-called  button  brooches,  on  the  saucer  brooches,  and 
on  the  square  headed  brooches  of  the  more  ornate  kind. 

The  button  brooch  claims  precedence  because  the  human 
face  is  here  the  constant  and  indeed  practically  the  sole  motive 
employed.  The  distribution  of  these  little  objects,  it  is  curious 
to  note,  does  not  follow  that  of  the  ordinary  saucer  brooches 
of  which  they  form  a  sub-class.  If  the  saucer  brooches  in 
general  belong  to  the  southern  Midlands,  with  the  addition  of 
Sussex,  the  button  brooches  are  a  south  country  type  appearing 
in  the  Jutish  regions  of  Kent  and  Hampshire,  in  Sussex,  and 
sporadically  in  Wilts,  Beds,  Berks,  Oxon,  Surrey.  A  few  from 
different  regions  are  illustrated  on  Plates  lviii,  lix,  lx.  A 
comparison  of  these  examples  will  show  that  there  is  consider- 
able variety  in  the  degrees  of  excellence  with  which  the  full-faced 
head  is  represented,  and  this  may  be  taken  as  a  proof  that  the 
objects  are  of  local  manufacture,  not  exported  from  any  single 
centre  either  in  this  country  or  abroad  (p.  33).  If  the  latter 
had  been  the  case  there  would  have  been  far  more  uniformity 

III  x 


322  MOTIVES  OF  ORNAMENT 

in  design  and  execution.  The  best  is  undoubtedly  the  Alfris- 
ton,  Sussex,  example,  PL  lix,  5,  which  may  be  compared  with 
the  head  on  the  round  button  on  the  bow  of  the  Bifrons  square 
headed  fibula,  PI.  lxii.  The  examples  on  the  lower  part  of 
PI.  lviii  are  comparatively  rude,  and  No.  3  would  by  itself  be 
unintelligible. 

The  origin  and  history  of  the  motive  are  interesting  to 
trace.  There  is  no  question  of  course  that  the  full  face  is 
ultimately  derived  from  classical  art,  and  there  is  a  good  deal 
to  be  said  for  the  suggestion  of  Dr.  Salin  that  the  well-known 
type  of  the  Medusa  head  is  the  true  source.  The  Alfriston 
and  Bifrons  heads,  PH.  lix,  5,  and  lxii,  with  the  puffed  cheeks 
are  very  Medusa-like.  There  are  one  or  two  examples,  not  in 
this  country,  in  which  the  tongue  is  made  to  protrude,  and 
this  is  a  most  significant  indication.  On  PI.  lx,  No.  8  shows 
a  small  ornamented  buckle  from  Blekinge  in  Sweden  in  the 
Museum  at  Stockholm,  on  which  is  a  boldly  modelled  face 
with  outstretched  tongue,1  that  we  can  hardly  avoid  connecting 
with  the  familiar  classical  apotropaion.  To  find  this  in  the 
North  need  cause  no  surprise  for,  as  is  well  known,  during  the 
early  centuries  of  the  Empire  the  importation  of  Roman  works 
of  industrial  art  into  Scandinavia  was  very  abundant  and  the 
models  thus  brought  before  the  native  craftsmen  of  the  North 
were  not  neglected.  PI.  lx,  3,  shows  a  classical  full  face  on 
a  Roman  cauldron  found  in  Denmark  and  No.  4  a  native 
reproduction  of  the  type.  The  full  face  is  in  evidence  in  the 
ornamentation  of  the  splendid  Scandinavian  gold  necklets  of  V 
shown  on  Plates  liv  and  lv  and  two  of  the  heads  from  the 
three-strand  necklet  on  these  plates  are  shown  enlarged  about 
4  diameters,  PI.  lx,  5.  Other  full-faced  heads  occur  on  the 
triangular  plate  serving  as  mounting  to  the  bracteate  furthest 
to  the  left  on  PI.  lv.  When  we  remember  that  the  saucer 
brooch  is  probably  of  northern  derivation  we  may  have 
good  reason  to  surmise  that  the  full  face  on  the  English  button 
1  Salin  gives  an  engraving  of  it  in  his  fig.  498. 


LXI 

facing  p.  323 


ROMAN  AND  BARBARIC  ORNAMENT 


1,  2,  are  a  little  reduced 
/,  2,  are  Continental 


HEADS  ON  BUTTON  BROOCHES  323 

brooches  of  saucer  type  came  to  us  from  the  north.     It  is  a 

confirmation  of  this  to  find  in  many  examples,  such  as  PI.  lx,  7, 

two  button  brooches  from  Bifrons,  the  moustache  emphasized, 

for  in  connection  with  the  full  face  on  the  sceat  coins  the 

northern  character  of  the  moustache  has  been  noticed  (p.  81). 

It  stands  to  reason  of  course  that  this  motive,  as  a  classical 

one,  was  known  and  used  in  the  South,  and  full-faced  heads 

of  this  type  occur,  though  not  very  frequently,  in  southern 

German  art.     A  very  quaint   example   in   the    Museum   at 

Regensburg  is  shown,  PI.  lx,  9,  where  the  introduction  of  the 

upraised  hands  on  each  side  of  the  face  is  a  notable  feature. 

It  was  found  in  a  Teutonic  grave  at  Alten  Elsing  with  a  sword, 

etc.,  and   is  not  cast  but  embossed  after  the  fashion  of  a 

bracteate.     On  the  whole  it  seems  most  likely  that  the  heads 

on  the  button  brooches  are  of  Scandinavian  provenance,  and 

not  direct  adaptations  of  classical  models.    This  does  not  mean 

of   course   that   the    objects   themselves    are    imported.     If 

they  were  of  northern  make  they  would  have  come  in  by  the 

Humber  and  the  Wash  rather  than  by  the  Kentish  ports,  or 

again  if  they  had  been  conveyed  to  the  ports  of  the  English 

Channel  by  the  ubiquitous  '  mercatores,'  who  already  in  Caesar's 

time  were  busy  in  these  seas  and  lands,  they  would  be  found 

on  the  other  side  of  the  Sleeve  as  well  as  on  ours,  but  as  a  fact 

the  French  and  Belgian  collections  are  almost  bare  of  them, 

though  M.  Boulanger  has  a  stray  example  among  his  treasures 

at  Peronne,  and  a  couple  from  Herpes  in  western  France  are 

in  the  British  Museum.     Like  the  larger  saucer  and  applied 

brooches  they  were  evidently  made  in  this  country,  and  their 

limited  distribution  may  be  a  matter  in  the  main  of  fashion. 

Their  occurrence  in  both  Kent  and  Sussex,  the  tomb  furniture 

of  which  shows  differences  rather  than  similarities,  may  be  due 

to  the  influence  of  fashion  affecting  two  contiguous  though 

not  connected  areas,  which  might  be  visited  successively  by 

(  mercatores '  bringing  round  trinkets  for  sale. 

The  full-face  motive  is  sometimes  used  repeated  so  as  to 


324  MOTIVES  OF  ORNAMENT 

form  a  continuous  border.  A  sceat  coin  type  has  been  figured, 
PI.  vi,  13  (p.  85),  which  shows  a  head  of  the  kind  in  the 
centre  with  a  continuous  ring  of  roundels  as  a  border.  On 
a  larger  scale  this  arrangement  occurs  in  the  tomb  furniture 
and  here  the  roundels  are  themselves  distinctly  full-faced  heads. 
The  most  striking  instance  is  the  Roman  gold  medallion  at 
Vienna,  already  noticed  (p.  306,  see  p.  529),  that  has  been  set 
by  a  barbaric  goldsmith  in  a  border  ornamented  with  a  ring  of 
these  heads,  PI.  G,  1 1 1  (p.  527),  and  it  is  highly  interesting  to 
find  in  our  own  country  a  parallel  to  this  Gothic  piece  of  IV 
a.d.,  in  the  shape  of  a  curious  metal  disc  in  the  Museum  at 
Rochester,  Kent,  where  a  border  seems  to  be  formed  of  similar 
flatly  treated  heads  arranged  in  like  manner.  It  is  figured 
PI.  lxi,  3.  It  should  be  added  that  this  use  of  the  full-faced 
head,  or  mask,  in  the  migration  period  is  discussed  by  Pro- 
fessor Bela  Posta  of  Kolozsvar,  Hungary,  in  his  Archeologische 
Studien  auf  Russischem  Boden,1  1,  55  f. 

Some  remarkable  examples  of  the  full-faced  human  head 
in  the  North  will  furnish  an  introduction  to  the  subject  of 
animal  ornament.  The  reference  is  to  the  well-known  circular 
plaques,  probably  ornaments  for  the  breast,  found  in  the 
Thorsberg  Moss  in  Schleswig  and  now  in  the  Museum  at 
Kiel,  PL  lxi,  1,  2.  The  material  is  bronze,  with  plating  of 
silver  parcel-gilt,  on  which  figures  and  animals  are  represented 
in  the  repousse  technique.  The  style  is  provincial-Roman  of 
IV,  but  there  are  barbaric  additions  which  make  for  us  the 
interest  of  the  work,  as  they  are  early  examples  of  Teutonic 
animal  ornament.  As  the  plaque  is  represented  on  the  Plate, 
the  reader  will  notice  near  the  inner  circumference  of  the 
outer  band  of  ornament  at  the  top  and  below  and  to  the  left 
barbaric  animals  on  small  separate  silver  plates  that  without 
any  intelligible  reason  have  been  riveted  on  over  parts  of  the 
classical  figure  design.  To  the  right  rivet  holes  show  where 
similar  plates  had  once  been  fixed.     PI.  lxi,  2,  shows  a  portion 

1  Budapest,  1905. 


TEUTONIC  ANIMAL  ORNAMENT  325 

of  the  fellow  plaque  where  the  original  silver  embossed  band 
has  been  stripped  entirely  from  the  bronze  ground  and  plates 
with  barbaric  animal  figures  have  been  substituted  in  their 
place.  The  contrast  is  very  marked  between  the  classically 
treated  Hermes-like  heads  which  are  beautifully  wrought,  and 
the  goats  on  the  outer  band  which  betray  the  hand  of  the 
northern  craftsman. 

These  barbaric  animals  on  both  the  Plates,  it  will  be  seen, 
are  quite  intelligible  and  reasonably  proportioned  and  articu- 
lated, though  in  the  profile  views  the  four  legs  are  represented 
as  two.  In  Anglo-Saxon  and  in  Germanic  art  generally 
animals  of  the  kind  occur  though  rarely,  and  may  be  found 
appearing  sporadically  at  almost  any  period.  The  relations 
among  the  animal  motives  on  the  sceat  coins,  on  the  Early 
Christian  carved  stones,  etc.,  and  on  objects  of  tomb  furniture, 
have  been  briefly  noticed  in  the  Introductory  (p.  13)  and  the 
second  chapter  (p.  103).  Here  we  are  concerned  only  with 
tomb  furniture,  in  which  the  natural  or  at  any  rate  logically 
treated  animal  form  makes  its  appearance  at  an  early  date  still 
in  V,  but  rapidly  '  degenerates.'  It  is  with  the  different  stages  of 
this  '  degeneration'  that  we  are  concerned,  and  for  the  moment 
the  creatures  that  are  the  starting  point  for  the  successive 
changes  must  be  taken  for  granted.  They  are* of  late  Roman 
origin,  and  in  their  Roman  connections  they  will  be  dealt  with 
on  a  later  page  (p.  548  f.).  Here  it  is  enough  to  note  their 
existence  in  the  two  forms  already  noticed  (p.  298  f.),  those  of 
the  couchant  leopard-like  beast  along  the  edges  of  an  object, 
and  the  creature  represented  as  a  whole  in  profile  for  the 
filling  of  a  space.  We  proceed  therefore  now  to  trace  the 
later  history  of  these  creatures  as  they  are  found  on  the  square 
headed  and  the  saucer  and  applied  fibulae  with  which  we  are 
at  present  specially  concerned.  The  leopard-like  couchant 
beast  occurs  very  commonly  on  the  feet  of  square  headed 
fibulae,  and  the  Bifrons  piece  already  shown  PI.  xxxiv,  7, 
may  be  referred  to  in  detail  as  represented  on  an  enlarged 


326  MOTIVES  OF  ORNAMENT 

scale  on  PI.  lxii.  The  piece  is  a  very  instructive  one  in  con- 
nection with  the  after  history  of  animal  ornamentation  the 
characteristic  style  of  which  appears  here  in  an  intermediate 
stage  of  development.  It  may  be  noted  that  the  fibula  has 
been  cast  in  three  pieces,  the  head  and  the  foot  being  riveted 
on  to  prolongations  of  the  bow.  The  full-faced  head,  in 
evidence  on  the  round  button  attached  to  the  bow,  is  repeated 
twice  on  the  sides  of  the  foot  and  once  on  the  head.  The 
central  ornament  of  the  lozenge  in  the  middle  of  the  foot  is 
probably  conventionalized  from  the  eyes  and  nose  of  a  human 
face,  while  at  the  top  and  at  the  bottom  of  the  foot  occur 
heads  which  remind  us  distantly  of  the  horse's  head  of  the 
cruciform  brooches.  The  crouching  leopard  occurs  four  times 
on  the  edges  of  the  foot.  He  has  a  pronounced  head  with 
open  jaws,  a  foreleg,  a  miserably  attenuated  body  and  a  hinder 
leg  that  stretches  out  behind  like  a  tail.  In  contrast  with  his 
intelligible  forms  we  find  on  both  the  head  and  the  foot  other 
animals  that  are  already  broken  up  and  mutilated  after  the 
fashion  described  in  the  quotation  from  Sophus  Miiller 
(p.  301).  Above,  to  right  and  left  of  the  upper  plate, 
are  creatures  almost  all  head,  and  two  rather  better  propor- 
tioned ones  are  confronted  on  the  upper  line  of  the  head  plate. 
In  the  case  of  all  these  four  beasts  the  jaws  are  open.  On 
each  side  of  the  full  face  upside  down  in  the  middle  part  of 
the  head  plate,  is  a  creature  of  the  same  type  doubled  up  into 
the  side  space.  In  the  upper  corners  of  these  spaces  to  right 
and  left  are  the  heads  with  round  eyes,  two  lines  for  the  eye- 
brow and  a  beak  like  that  of  a  parrot.  Slanting  down  from 
this  towards  the  centre  comes  the  neck  and  what  is  evidently 
meant  for  the  foreleg  fills  the  two  bottom  corners,  though  it 
does  not  articulate  as  it  should  at  the  bottom  of  the  neck. 
From  what  ought  to  be  the  articulation  of  this  foreleg  below 
the  neck  the  trunk  of  the  creature  ascends  perpendicularly  and 
terminates  in  a  well-rendered  hind  leg  with  its  double  claw. 
Below,  on  the  foot,  on  each  side  of  the  bow  can  be  discerned 


LXII 

facing  p.  326 


SILVER  FIBULA   FROM  BIFRONS 


i*:«ii 


Enlarged  to  k  more  than  natural  size 


DR.  SALIN'S  SCHEME  327 

the  projecting  heads  apparently  of  birds,  almost  confused  with 
the  front  paws  of  the  couchant  leopard.  The  clearest  is  to 
the  left.  Finally  round  the  central  lozenge  runs  a  band  with 
animals  in  low  relief  more  confused  and  inchoate  than  any  of 
the  others,  but,  as  examination  shows,  of  much  the  same  breed. 
Four  human  heads  accordingly,  two  of  the  horse's  head  type, 
two  birds'  heads  below  the  bow,  four  crouching  beasts  on  the 
margin  of  the  foot  treated  more  or  less  in  the  round,  and 
about  a  dozen  figured  in  relief  make  up  the  ornamental  forms 
distributed  over  the  piece,  the  date  of  which  may  be  fixed 
about  the  middle  of  VI. 

The  often  quoted  work  of  Dr.  Bernhard  Salin  contains  a 
minute  analysis  of  the  different  forms  assumed  by  this  Germanic 
animal  ornament  from  the  time  when  in  dealing  with  the 
crouching  animal  taken  over  from  provincial-Roman  art  it 
begins  to  modify  this  in  its  own  spirit,  a  time  he  fixes  at  the 
close  of  V,  down  to  the  period  of  the  Carolingian  renaissance. 
He  makes  three  stages  in  this  development,  distinguishing 
three  styles,  1,  11  and  in.  In  this  part  of  his  work  he  illus- 
trates at  the  outset  these  three  styles  from  the  decorative  human 
and  animal  forms  that  occur  on  the  three  splendid  Swedish 
necklets  in  gold  which  have  been  figured  on  PH.  liv,  lv. 
These  forms  show  a  gradual  degeneration  and  empoverish- 
ment,  the  best,  most  varied,  and  most  animated  occurring  on 
the  necklet  with  three  strands,1  inferior  models  on  that  with 
five  strands,  while  on  the  necklet  with  seven  strands  they  are 
still  more  monotonous  and  lifeless.  In  the  detailed  treatment 
however  that  follows,  this  general  scheme  is  not  strictly 
adhered  to,  but  it  is  shown  how  the  animals  of  Style  1  are 
gradually  broken  up  till  they  are  reduced  to  a  few  scattered 
members  or  to  a  confused  medley  of  uncertain  forms.  This 
goes  on  through  VI  but  at  the  beginning  of  VII  there  is 
something  like  a  temporary  renaissance,  and  a  respectable 
consistency  of  structure  is  again  to  be  observed  in  the  creatures, 
1  Shown  best  on  PI.  lv  (p.  309). 


328  MOTIVES  OF  ORNAMENT 

which  soon  however  show  a  tendency  once  more  to  be  resolved 
into  something  like  a  mere  play  of  lines.  This  goes  on  through 
VII  at  the  end  of  which  appears  in  Scandinavia  Style  in 
which  lasts  to  IX,  and  this  Style  in  so  far  from  representing 
a  further  decline  on  Style  n  produces  work  that  is  pronounced 
to  attain  the  highest  pitch  of  refinement  and  delicacy,  so  that 
the  best  which  the  North  now  produces  equals  anything  of  the 
kind  ever  done  in  the  world.1  It  only  remains  however  for  a 
brief  time  and  a  final  decline  soon  sets  in.  It  is  clear  accordingly 
that  we  have  really  to  deal  in  northern  art  not  with  a  pro- 
gressive empoverishment  but  with  successive  epochs  of  decline 
and  revival,  and  this  is  a  rather  different  matter.  Dr.  Salin's 
work  was  epoch-making  and  has  become  a  classic,  so  that  every 
worker  in  this  field  must  acknowledge  his  deep  obligations  to 
it.  At  the  same  time  it  would  be  a  pity  to  exalt  '  Style  i ' 
and  *  Style  n '  into  a  fetish.  As  the  author  himself  admits, 
these  styles  pass  into  each  other,  and  even  if  the  expression  be 
allowed  pass  in  and  out  of  each  other,  in  a  way  that  makes 
any  rigid  separation  inexpedient.  The  truth  is  that  these 
demarcations  are  of  the  utmost  value  to  a  worker  when  he  is 
sorting  out  a  heterogeneous  mass  of  examples.  They  cannot 
be  dispensed  with  at  the  time,  and  moreover  they  always  retain 
considerable  worth,  that  should  not  however  be  exaggerated. 
The  styles  of  Minoan  vase  decoration  are  reckoned  in  Knossian 
circles  as  equal  in  number  to  the  Muses,  but  some  archaeo- 
logists of  repute  doubt  whether  such  minute  subdivision  can 
really  be  carried  out  in  practice. 

So  far  as  our  Anglo-Saxon  work  is  concerned,  we  may  read 
the  history  of  Dr.  Salin's  Style  i  writ  clearly  on  our  own 
saucer,  applied,  and  square  headed  brooches,  which  show  the 
classical  couchant  beast  and  beast  in  profile  gradually  deformed 
and  broken  up  through  the  lustres  of  VI,  till  at  the  beginning 
of  VII  the  animal  is  reduced  to  the  summary  presentment 
illustrated    in    the    panels   of   the   Kingston    fibula   on    the 

1  Tbierornamentik,  p.  270. 


LXIII 

facing  p.  329 


INTERLACING  ANIMAL  ORNAMENT 


i,  slightly  reduced  ;  3,  5,  6,  somewhat  enlarged 


ANIMAL  FORMS  AND  INTERLACING  329 

Frontispiece  to  this  volume.  There  is  one  characteristic 
however  that  belongs  to  all  these  creatures  whether  coherent 
or  fragmentary.  They  are  confronted  or  turned  back  to 
back,  they  follow  each  other  round  a  circle  or  are  distributed 
piecemeal  over  a  field,  but  however  crowded  the  arrangement 
they  do  not  as  a  rule  impinge  on  each  other  or  intertwine. 
It  is  not  meant  that  the  forms  never  interlace,  but  it  is 
certainly  not  their  habit  so  to  do,  and  it  will  be  shown  in 
the  sequel  (p.  340  f.)  that  a  specious  appearance  of  interlacing 
is  produced  by  the  juxtaposition  of  forms  that  appear  at 
first  sight  to  go  under  and  over  each  other  but  are  really 
separate  and  on  the  same  plane.  The  examples  which  will 
be  presently  shown  on  Pll.  lxv  to  lxviii  broadly  viewed  will 
be  seen  to  bear  out  what  is  here  said,  and  we  may  take  it 
that  during  VI  the  animal  forms  corresponding  to  Dr.  Salin's 
Style  1  do  not  to  any  marked  extent  interlace.  Now  with 
us  animal  ornament  continues  to  flourish  through  the  Christian 
period  represented  in  art  by  the  carved  stones  and  the 
manuscripts,  and  during  the  whole  of  this  time  interlacing 
is  its  special  characteristic.  Indeed  so  conspicuous  is  this 
phenomenon  that  it  has  given  birth  to  two  erroneous  theories, 
one  of  the  origin  of  animal  ornament  another  of  that  of 
the  centrelacs.'  The  former,  some  have  thought,  began  in 
the  addition  of  heads  and  tails  to  interlaced  ribbons,  the 
latter  in  the  prolongation  and  smoothing  out  of  the  bodies 
of  convoluted  lacertine  creatures.  Of  course  neither  of  these 
theories  is  true,  for  interlacing  and  animal  ornament  have 
totally  different  origins  and  early  histories,  but  the  existence 
of  the  theories  is  a  proof  how  much  in  evidence  is  the 
combination  of  animal  forms  with  interlacing  patterns.  This 
combination  is  however  a  phenomenon  of  somewhat  late 
appearance.  In  Teutonic  ornamentation  '  entrelacs '  do  not 
come  into  vogue  till  VII  when  as  before  noticed  (p.  294)  they 
make  their  appearance  on  the  handsome  buckles  that  are  in 
fashion  at  the  time.     Specimens  of  such  buckles  will  be  found 


330  MOTIVES  OF  ORNAMENT 

Pll.  lxxiii,  lxxiv  (p.  357).  It  is  significant  that  the  pendant 
cross  of  VII  from  Chartham  Down,  Kent,  PL  x,  3  (p.  115) 
has  interlacing  ornament  upon  it.  In  the  early  part  of  that 
century  the  already  existing  animal  ornament  that  had  pre- 
viously been  coquetting  with  the  interlacing  principle  entered 
with  it  into  an  intimate  alliance,  and  in  a  large  number  of 
the  forms  of  zoomorphic  enrichment  in  the  subsequent  periods 
of  Anglo-Saxon  art  the  two  are  inseparable.  There  is  of 
course  on  the  coins  and  certain  carved  stones  such  as  the 
Bewcastle  and  Ruthwell  Crosses  animal  work  in  which  there 
is  no  interlacing,  but  in  the  manuscripts  and  the  stones 
generally  the  relation  indicated  holds,  and  may  be  illustrated 
by  the  creatures  that  are  half-beast  half-ribbon  on  the  interest- 
ing carved  stone  from  Gloucester  in  the  Museum  of  that 
town,  PI.  lxiii,  2. 

The  example  chosen  by  Dr.  Salin  for  the  beginning  in 
England  of  his  Style  n x  is  a  characteristic  illustration  of  this 
relation.  It  is  an  enriched  sword  pommel  in  the  British 
Museum,  PI.  lxiii,  4,  on  which  are  seen  two  animals  which 
have  sorted  out  their  various  members  from  the  confused 
heap  into  which  the  later  Style  1  had  cast  them  and  recon- 
stituted their  anatomy.  It  is  a  renaissance,  but  also  the 
introduction  of  the  new  form  of  creatures  biting  each  other 
and  plaiting  together  their  legs  and  tails.  The  jaws  of  each 
creature  embrace  the  body  of  its  fellow  midway  between  the 
articulations  of  the  two  limbs,  the  hinder  one  of  which  is 
doubled  up  under  the  body,  while  the  foreleg  elongated  into 
a  ribbon  ascends  twining  over  and  under  the  two  bodies 
and  ends  at  the  top  in  a  regulation  claw.  Below  the  pommel 
PL  lxiii,  4,  is  an  enriched  mount  from  the  same  sword  hilt 
which  shows  an  interlacing  ribbon  with  hardly  a  trace  of  any 
zoomorphic  character.  For  our  own  country  therefore  it 
would  be  perhaps  preferable  to  drop  the  threefold  division 
and  to  make  two  styles  of  animal  ornament,  one  in  which  the 

1  Tbierornamentik,  p.  328. 


INTERLACING  ANIMALS  331 

single  or  confronted  or  sequent  creatures  change  from  con- 
sistent entities  of  classical  derivation  to  a  collection  of  dis- 
jointed fragments  sometimes  but  not  often  interpenetrating, 
and  a  second  in  which  from  the  beginning  of  VII  onwards 
to  XI  interlacing  animals,  at  first  properly  anatomized  and 
later  on  reduced  almost  to  elongated  bands,  fill  the  spaces  of 
ornamental  schemes  with  their  ingeniously  devised  convolutions. 
One  or  two  other  examples  of  this  VII  interlacing  zoo- 
morphic  ornament  may  for  the  sake  of  convenience  be  here 
introduced.  The  round  bronze  gold-plated  plaque,  3  in. 
across,  from  Alton  Hill,  Bottisham,  Cambs,  in  the  Ashmolean, 
PI.  lxiii,  i,  intended  apparently  to  be  attached  to  leather  or 
some  fabric  by  a  stud  at  the  back  so  as  to  serve  like  the  Kiel 
plaques,  PI.  lxi,  as  a  breast  ornament ;  and  a  silver  plaque 
l£  in.  in  diameter,  PI.  lxiii,  3,  found  with  other  objects  of 
interest  in  a  tumulus  at  Caenby,  Lincolnshire,  have  both  of 
them  animal  ornament  in  repousse  in  which  beasts  are 
biting  each  other's  bodies,  and  in  both  cases  this  is  accom- 
panied on  the  same  or  on  associated  objects1  with  almost 
pure  interlacing  ribbon  work,  which  makes  the  VII  date 
unmistakable.  A  third  example,  figured  by  Salin  on  his 
p.  327,  is  a  gilded  bronze  pendant  from  Gilton,  Kent,  at 
Liverpool,  PI.  lxiii,  6,  very  neatly  wrought,  on  which  are 
four  animals  each  with  eye,  brows,  jaws,  body,  and  hind  leg, 
considerably  interlaced  ;  while  a  fourth  is  to  be  found  on 
a  gilded  clasp  from  the  Taplow  Barrow,  where  animals  are 
twined  together  on  the  two  triangular  plates  in  close  inter- 
lacing. The  approximate  date  of  this  object  is  fixed  on 
Dr.  Salin's  generally  accepted  chronology  a  little  after  600, 
for  on  the  ring  which  forms  the  eye  of  the  clasp  are  animals 
with  the  characteristic  heads  of  his  Style  11  which  was  coming 
in  at  that  epoch.  The  clasps  are  shown  in  colour  PI.  B,  iv 
(p.  353),  to  the  left,  and  also,  PI.  lxxvii,  2  (p.  361). 

1  See  for  these,  in   the  case  of  the  Caenby  plaque,  Akerman's   Tagan 
Saxondom,  pi.  xv. 


332  MOTIVES  OF  ORNAMENT 

It  has  been  necessary  to  establish  the  general  course  of 
the  history  in  this  country  of  animal  ornament  before  dealing 
with  the  square  headed  fibulae,  for  these  objects  can  only 
be  classified  and  dated  on  the  basis  of  their  ornamentation. 
Their  morphology,  like  that  of  the  *  saucer '  fibulae,  is  a 
comparatively  simple  matter,  but  both  these  types  of  the 
brooch  are  distinguished  by  the  variety  and  richness  of  the 
decorative  motives  with  which  they  are  adorned,  and  these 
motives  are  largely  of  a  zoomorphic  character.  The  discussion 
which  follows  must  therefore  be  taken  in  connection  with 
what  has  already  been  said  about  these  two  types  in  the 
chapter  on  fibula  morphology,  where  for  the  reason  just  given 
the  treatment  of  them  was  necessarily  imperfect. 

If  the  reader  will  refer  back  to  that  chapter  (p.  256  f.)  he 
will  note  the  paragraphs  about  the  origin  of  the  square  head 
plate  and  its  history  after  losing  the  projecting  knobs,  and 
about  the  chief  forms  assumed  by  the  foot,  with  the  animals' 
heads  below  the  bow.  The  appearance  on  the  bow  of  that 
curious  adjunct,  confined  to  the  North  and  to  England,1  of  a 
round  disc  sometimes  ornamented  with  a  human  face  was 
also  noticed.  Nothing  more  was  there  said  about  the  square 
headed  fibula  and  the  sub-type  may  accordingly  be  taken  up 
here  afresh. 

Its  distribution  in  Europe  generally  and  in  our  own 
country  is  pretty  wide,  though  in  Europe  it  may  be  safely 
described  as  on  the  whole  a  northern  form  that  flourished 
specially  in  Scandinavia  but  is  found  also  very  commonly  in 
S.  Germany  and  occurs  often  enough  in  Frankish  collections. 
In  Austria-Hungary,  southern  Russia,  and  Italy  it  is  hardly 
represented,  and  considering  its  abundance  in  Scandinavia  its 
absence  from  the  North  German  cemeteries  is  a  curious  fact 
and  is  commented  on  by  Mr.  Leeds  in  his  recent  book.2     In 

1  Pilloy,  Etudes,  m,  134,  writes  '  le  disque  qui  recouvre  la   partie  ansee 
ne  se  voit  nuile  part  ailleurs  que  dans  le  Nord.' 

2  Archaeology  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  Settlements,  p.  98. 


SQUARE  HEADED  AND  CRUCIFORM  FIBULAE    333 

England  its  distribution  is  so  wide  that  Dr.  Salin  believes  it 
came  in  from  two  distinct  sources,  the  Midlands  being  supplied 
from  the  Scandinavian  side,  the  southern  counties  from  the 
Rhineland.1  The  square  headed  fibula  should  as  far  as  possible 
be  kept  distinct  from  the  cruciform  which  has  been  already 
discussed,  though  the  following  relations  exist  between  them. 
(1)  In  the  florid  forms  which  each  assumes  in  the  later  stages 
of  development  there  is  a  superficial  resemblance.  (2)  The 
'  horse's  head '  in  its  elaborated  later  shape  is  sometimes  trans- 
ferred to  the  foot  of  a  square  headed  brooch,  as  PI.  xxxix,  2 
(p.  255).  (3)  The  development  of  the  wings  below  the  bow 
in  the  cruciform  fibula  gives  its  foot  some  resemblance  to  the 
rhomboidal  termination  customary  in  the  square  headed  kind. 
(4)  In  the  distribution  of  the  two  there  is  the  difference  that 
while  both  are  common  in  the  Midlands  the  square  headed 
brooch  does  not  extend  so  far  north  as  the  other,  and  on  the 
other  hand  it  is  common  south  of  the  Thames  where  the 
appearance  of  the  cruciform  brooch  is  very  rare  and  sporadic, 
while  a  small  but  ornate  form  of  it,  illustrated  PI.  xxxiv,  1  to  5, 
is  specially  characteristic  of  Kent.  The  square  headed  fibula 
is  common  in  the  Midland  counties  such  as  Leicester, 
Warwick,  Rutland,  Northants,  Cambridgeshire,  and  occurs  in 
these  latitudes  to  the  east  in  Norfolk  and  Suffolk  and  also  to 
the  south-west  in  Gloucestershire  and  Oxfordshire.  It  is  rare 
in  Yorkshire  and  Lincolnshire  and  has  not  been  found  north 
of  the  Tees.  South  of  the  Thames  it  occurs  in  Surrey,  Berks, 
the  Isle  of  Wight,  and  pretty  abundantly  in  Kent  and  in  Sussex 
where  it  has  recently  been  well  represented  in  the  finds  at 
Alfriston. 

The  examples  of  the  sub-type  are  very  numerous  and  hard 
to  classify,  though  it  is  possible  to  distinguish  certain  groups. 
Our  own  country  has  not  produced  the  finest  examples  of  the 
class  which  are  to  be  sought  in  Scandinavia,  where  there  is  a 
noble  series  of  cast  and  chased  silver  and  bronze  brooches  of 

1  Tbierornamentik,  p.  145. 


334  MOTIVES  OF  ORNAMENT 

V  date,  figured  in  the  works  of  Salin  and  Haakon  Schetelig. 
In  these  the  animal  form  where  it  occurs  is  treated  in  a  more 
or  less  naturalistic  fashion  and  the  ornamentation  is  chiefly  of 
a  linear  kind,  a  large  use  being  made  of  spiral  scrolls  treated 
like  the  Brighthampton  scabbard  mount,  PI.  lix,  7  (p.  317). 
The  English  examples  of  V  are  certain  small  brooches  found 
in  Kent  of  which  PI.  xxxiv,  1,  is  a  specimen.  The  ornament 
here  is  almost  purely  linear  and  the  form  is  simple  and  severe. 
Later  on  the  Kentish  brooches  are  distinguished  by  the  use 
of  garnet  settings  which  begin  in  the  sober  fashion  of  PL  xxxiv, 
2,  and  grow  more  profuse  in  the  latter  part  of  VI.  A  parti- 
cularly interesting  example  from  this  period,  shown  by  its 
debased  zoomorphic  ornament  to  be  a  late  production,  is  one 
that  will  be  found  figured  on  a  subsequent  plate,  PI.  clv,  5 
(p.  563).  It  is  from  Sarre,  and  is  celebrated  through  the  fact 
that  a  fibula  almost  its  exact  counterpart  came  to  light  in  the 
Frankish  cemetery  of  Herpes  on  the  Charente  in  western 
France  and  can  be  compared  with  it  on  the  plate. 

Another  group  of  square  headed  fibulae  we  may  call  the 
Midland  group.  There  are  a  fair  number  of  cast  bronze 
fibulae  found  in  the  Midland  counties  and  in  East  Anglia  that 
are  characterized  by  simplicity  of  outline  and  ornament  and  by 
the  exclusion  of  animal  forms  from  the  enrichment  which 
consists  almost  entirely  in  geometrical  or  conventional  patterns. 
They  are  not  nearly  so  handsome  as  the  V  Scandinavian  pieces 
just  noticed,  but  they  have  been  claimed  as  equally  early  on 
the  ground  of  their  scheme  of  ornamentation.  One  of  their 
peculiarities,  which  occurs  also  on  some  of  these  Scandinavian 
examples,  is  the  addition,  at  the  three  lower  angles  of  the 
diamond-shaped  foot,  of  flat  discs  of  metal  that  were  originally 
tinned  or  silvered. 

The  problem  of  the  date  of  these  English  brooches, 
specimens  of  which  are  figured  PH.  lxiv,  1,  2,  3  ;  lxv,  i,  4, 
opens  up  a  rather  interesting  question.  On  the  strength  of 
the  linear   character  of  its   ornamentation   an  example  from 


'MIDLAND'  SQUARE  HEADED  FIBULAE        335 

Holme  Pierrepont  (or  Cotgrave),  Notts,  is  dated  in  the 
Victoria  History ,  Notts,  1,  196,  in  the  first  half  of  V,  and  is 
compared  with  a  similar  piece  from  Kenninghall,  Norfolk, 
6^  in.  long,  in  the  British  Museum.  This  Norfolk  specimen, 
shown  PI.  lxiv,  2,  might  so  far  as  its  ornamentation  and 
workmanship  are  concerned  belong  to  V  for  these  are  early 
and  good,  but  the  Kenninghall  cemetery  is  a  purely  inhumation 
one  which  in  East  Anglia,  where  cremation  is  so  common, 
suggests  though  it  does  not  necessitate  a  rather  advanced  date. 
Furthermore  the  square  or  diamond  shaped  projecting  patches 
at  the  corners  of  the  head  look  suspiciously  like  imitations  of 
the  garnets  set  in  these  positions  in  Kentish  specimens  of  VI, 
such  as  the  piece  from  Sarre  just  mentioned  that  is  figured 
PI.  clv.  Garnets  occur  set  in  these  positions  on  square  headed 
fibulae  other  than  Kentish,  as  on  a  fine  piece  from  Cambridge- 
shire at  Audley  End,  and  imitations  of  garnet  settings  also  occur, 
a  projecting  disc  of  bronze  giving  the  similitude.  This 
phenomenon  is  by  no  means  confined  to  square  headed  brooches, 
for  it  occurs  also  on  saucer  brooches  as  succeeding  plates  will 
show,  and  it  is  not  exclusively  English,  for  the  same  thing  was 
observed  in  certain  Gothic  buckles  from  the  Crimea x  some  of 
which  have  real  incrustations  and  others  the  imitation  of  these 
by  projecting  discs  of  metal.  Now  there  is  a  good  deal  of 
force  in  the  contention  2  that  such  garnet  inlays  outside  Kent, 
and  especially  the  imitations  of  them,  were  due  to  Kentish 
influence  spreading  with  the  extension  of  the  political  power 
of  iEthelberht  of  Kent  in  the  last  part  of  VI.  If  this  criterion 
be  a  valid  one  it  would  bring  the  date  of  the  Kenninghall 
brooch  much  lower  down  than  500  a.d. 

Viewing  this  group  as  a  whole  we  should  be  inclined  to 
see  in  it  a  case  of  the  perpetuation  of  a  certain  special  style  of 
work  through  a  considerable  period,  while  similar  work  in 
other  styles  might  be  going  on  at  the  same  time  and  in  the 

1  Gotze,  Gotiscbe  Schnallen,  Berlin,  n.d.,  p.  16. 

2  Victoria  History,  Norfolk,  1,  345  ;  Jrcbaeologia,  lxiii,  192. 


336  MOTIVES  OF  ORNAMENT 

same  regions.  Normally  throughout  VI  zoomorphic  ornament 
in  its  various  stages,  be  they  of  evolution  or  degradation,  is 
the  predominant  ornamental  motive,  but  we  need  not  as  was 
suggested  before  (p.  13  f.)  assume  that  it  was  ubiquitous  and 
all  powerful.  Hence  though  it  is  quite  possible  that  some  of 
the  group  of  square  headed  fibulae  now  under  notice  may 
belong  to  V  others  of  the  same  general  character  might  bring 
us  to  the  end  of  VI.  PI.  lxiv,  1,  6  in.  long,  has  a  very  early 
appearance,  but  it  comes  from  Market  Overton  cemetery  that 
was  dated  by  the  reporter  of  its  exploration  in  the  last  half  of 
VI.1  A  severely  treated  example  is  PI.  lxv,  4,  from  Ipswich, 
where  the  cemetery  is  put  down  to  VI.  It  has  good  linear 
and  conventional  ornament  of  classical  type,  but  the  ornament 
on  each  side  just  below  the  bow  looks  like  a  conventionalized 
animal's  head  of  an  advanced  stage  of  c  Style  1/  The  bow 
moreover  is  furnished  with  a  round  button  disc  a  feature  of 
VI  rather  than  V.  The  well-known  Billesdon  brooch  at 
Leicester,  PL  lxv,  i,  6  in.  long,  resembles  the  Kenninghall 
piece  very  closely,  but  is  dated  in  the  Victoria  History2  to  the 
middle  of  VI.  The  example,  PI.  lxiv,  3,  5^  in.  long,  from 
High  Dyke,  the  old  Roman  road  near  Welbourn,  Lincoln- 
shire,3 is  in  a  diffuse  style  suggesting  a  date  far  nearer  600 
than  500  a.d.,  and  the  enrichment  that  surrounds  the  early 
looking  guilloche  and  quatrefoil  panels  in  the  middle  of  the 
head  and  the  foot  is  probably  debased  zoomorphic  ornament 
of  quite  a  late  period.  It  may  be  added  that  on  Taf.  148  of 
Hampel's  Alterthumer  in  Ungarn  is  a  coarsely  wrought  fibula 
which  he  dates  in  VII  but  which  has  nothing  on  it  but  classical 
linear  ornament. 

Another   group   may   be   formed  of  late  square  headed 

1  Mr.  V.  B.  Crowther-Beynon,  F.S.A.,  in  Archaeologia,  lxii,  489. 

2  Leicester,  1,  238. 

3  This  specimen  is  in  the  Alnwick  Castle  Museum  and  thanks  are  due 
to  the  Duke  of  Northumberland  for  his  permission  to  reproduce  it,  as  well  as 
two  pieces  on  PI.  l,  and  one  each  on  PI.  lii  and  PI.  lxxviii. 


LXV 

facing  p.  336 


LXVI 

facing  p.  337 


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LATE  FLORID  LONG  BROOCHES  337 

fibulae  of  a  florid  kind  that  are  an  English  speciality,  and  that 
carry  us  as  regards  date  no  small  distance  through  VII.  One 
reason  why  we  have  these  handsome  but  overladen  pieces 
practically  to  ourselves  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the 
form  survived  longer  in  use  in  this  country  than  abroad. 
M.  Pilloy  notes  that  in  France  the  handsome  long  brooches 
cease  about  600  a.d.,  '  l'epoque  ou  la  grande  fibule  de  manteau 
disparait  a  tout  jamais,'  *  to  be  replaced  by  the  disc  fibulae 
with  stones  set  '  en  cabochon,'  and  H.  Schetelig  makes  his  long 
fibulae  disappear  in  the  North  after  VI.  With  us  these  late 
and  debased  pieces  were  flaunted  in  VII,  and  we  find  on  them 
the  last  wrecks  of  the  characteristic  animal  ornament  of  VI. 
There  is  no  sign  here  of  a  renaissance  nor  of  the  introduction 
of  the  new  schemes  of  interlacing.  The  fragments  of  what 
once  were  animal  forms  are  planted  closely  over  the  field 
filling  up  the  spaces  but  suggesting  to  the  eye  neither  design 
nor  distribution.  Contemporary  with  these  are  the  latest  and 
equally  florid  cruciform  brooches,  and  the  example  figured  PI. 
lxix,  3  (p.  343)  may  be  taken  to  represent  the  final  degenera- 
tion of  ornament  alike  on  the  square  headed  and  the  cruciform 
fibulae.  Saucer  brooches  must  be  joined  with  the  c  long ' 
ones  as  they  are  equally  good  as  illustrations  of  the  point  in 
view,  and  Pll.  lxviii,  lxix  show  some  characteristic  specimens. 
See  especially  PL  lxix,  i. 

Returning  now  to  the  historical  development  of  this 
Germanic  beast  ornament  in  VI,  if  we  look  first  for  some- 
thing that  comes  next  in  order  to  the  Bifrons  fibula,  PL  lxii, 
we  shall  find  it  in  a  brooch  from  Rothley  Temple,  Leicester- 
shire, PL  lxvi,  1,  where  between  the  side  knobs  and  the  lower 
terminal  of  the  foot  are  on  both  sides  crouching  beasts  nearly 
as  good  as  the  Bifrons  ones  with  the  additional  peculiarity  that 
the  artist  has  contrived  to  give  the  creature  two  hind  legs 
instead  of  one.     There  is  also  a  forepaw  with  as  many  toes  as 

1  ttudes,  in,  132,  134. 
Ill  Y 


338  MOTIVES  OF  ORNAMENT 

the  legs  of  a  centipede,  and  a  head  that  comes  close  up  under 
the  side  knob.  The  full-faced  heads  at  the  corners  of  the  foot 
may  be  contrasted  with  the  flat  discs  of  the  Billesdon  and 
other  examples  on  PI.  lxiv,  lxv.  On  the  head  plate  there  is 
the  curious  contrast  of  a  central  panel  like  the  Billesdon  one  sur- 
rounded with  a  border  of  quite  debased  animal  ornament  which 
justifies  though  it  hardly  necessitates  the  ascription  of  the  piece 
to  a  later  date  than  that  fibula,  though  the  crouching  beast  is  far 
too  good  to  be  relegated  as  in  the  Victoria  History x  to  VII.  We 
must  remember  that  even  the  Bifrons  fibula,  PL  lxii,  of  the 
middle  of  VI  has  some  very  shaky  animal  design  upon  it. 

The  large  and  handsome  brooch  PI.  lxvi,  2,  unfortun- 
ately damaged  below,  was  found  on  the  site  of  St.  Andrew's 
Hospital,  Northampton,  and  is  in  the  Museum  there.  It  is 
noteworthy  for  two  reasons.  In  the  first  place  the  beast 
ornament  on  the  head  and  on  the  foot  shows  a  creature  still 
continuous  though  in  the  process  of  dissolution.  The  border 
of  the  head  plate  is  made  up  of  a  series  of  full-faced  human 
heads  with  moustaches,  after  the  fashion  of  that  in  the  middle 
of  the  upper  border  of  the  head  plate  in  the  Duston  fibula 
PI.  lxvi,  3.  The  middle  part  of  the  plate  just  above  the  bow, 
in  No.  2,  has  a  panel  of  scroll  work,  and  between  this  and  the 
border  there  is  the  characteristic  beast  ornament.  Starting  from 
the  left  hand  bottom  corner  we  see  the  round  dot  marking 
the  creature's  eye  and  above  it  lines  indicating  the  brow.  The 
three  vertical  strokes  above  and  at  right  angles  to  these  stand 
for  the  neck,  and  just  to  the  right  of  these  there  are  other  three 
lines  that  probably  should  mark  the  junction  of  the  foreleg 
with  the  body,  while  the  foreleg  with  its  double  knee  brings 
the  foot  up  close  under  the  chin.  Horizontal  lines  further 
up  seem  to  indicate  the  junction  of  the  hind  leg  that  fills  up 
the  corner.  The  space  in  the  horizontal  part  of  the  panel 
between  the  forms  just  indicated  and  the  middle  of  the  head 
plate  shows  us,  apparently  unconnected,  an  eye  with  two  jaws 

1  Leicester,  i,  238. 


LXVII 

facing  p.  339 


P 
« 
P 
< 
W 

« 

<; 
D 
3" 


ORNATE  SQUARE-HEADED  FIBULAE  339 

pointing  towards  the  middle,  an  eye  alone,  and  a  bent  leg  and 
claw.  With  a  little  ingenuity  the  animals  on  the  foot  of  the 
brooch  can  be  more  or  less  made  out. 

The  second  point  of  interest  about  the  piece  is  a  certain 
plastic  feeling  of  which  it  gives  evidence.  Studs  project  from 
the  side  discs  of  the  foot  and  from  the  two  upper  corners  of 
the  head  nondescript  creatures  like  couchant  lions.  This  is 
important  in  view  of  the  remark,  a  perfectly  true  one,  by 
Haakon  Schetelig *  to  the  effect  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  crafts- 
man worked  for  an  effect  of  flatness,  whereas  his  Norwegian 
contemporary  showed  a  predilection  for  boldness  of  relief. 
Most  of  the  florid  square  headed  and  cruciform  fibulae  are 
markedly  flat,  but  on  the  other  hand  some  latish,  if  not  late, 
pieces  are  effective  in  their  relief.  This  is  true  not  only  of 
the  Northampton  specimen  but  of  the  three  interesting 
Alfriston  square  headed  brooches  shown  PI.  lxvii,  which 
may  be  dated  in  the  latter  part  of  VI. 

When  we  analyse  the  enrichment  upon  these  Alfriston 
fibulae  we  see  that  consistency  in  the  animal  forms  is  nowhere 
apparent,  yet  on  the  other  hand  the  decorative  effect  is 
excellent  and  the  pieces  would  pass  everywhere  as  the  work 
of  a  vigorous  craftsman  who  had  the  sense  of  an  ensemble 
though  he  was  not  fastidiously  concerned  about  his  details. 
He  is  certainly  not  without  plastic  feeling,  as  we  see  in  the 
boldly  projecting  ribs  and  above  all  in  the  heads  in  relief  on 
the  feet  of  the  fibulae  PI.  lxvii,  i,  3,  to  right  and  left  of  the 
plate,  that  shows  the  three  a  little  under  the  natural  size.  The 
heads  on  the  right  hand  specimen  stand  out  \  in.  from  the 
ground.  There  are  three  heads  also,  though  less  effectively 
treated,  on  the  fine  Northamptonshire  fibula  from  Duston, 
5f  in.  in  length,  PI.  lxvi,  3,  and  it  is  interesting  to  note  the 
close  resemblance,  save  for  the  garnet  settings,  between  this  piece 
and  the  Kentish  brooch  before  referred  to  (p.  334)  as  a  pair  to 
one  found  at  Herpes  on  the  Charente,  PI.  clv,  5,  6  (p.  $63). 

1   Cruciform  Brooches  of  Norway,  p.  106. 


340  MOTIVES  OF  ORNAMENT 

As  illustrating  another  tendency  in  the  later  development 
of  the  square  headed  fibula  notice  may  be  taken  of  a  rather 
famous  piece  the  '  Myton '  or  '  St.  Nicholas '  brooch  in  the 
Warwick  Museum,  PI.  lxviii,  6.  The  photograph  shows  it 
considerably  foreshortened.  It  is  a  large  and  handsome  fibula 
5|-  in.  long,  covered  with  ornament  of  a  kind  hard  to  describe, 
but  its  chief  interest  for  our  purpose  lies  in  the  shape  of  the 
head  plate,  that  is  of  a  curved  outline  with  projecting  corners. 
Several  of  the  brooches  already  illustrated  show  this  feature 
which  is  most  pronounced  in  the  case  of  PI.  lxiv,  3,  where 
plated  silver  discs  have  been  added  at  all  four  angles.  At  the 
two  upper  corners  of  the  Warwick  brooch  and  at  the  bottom 
of  the  foot  there  are  settings  of  elongated  form  that  were 
filled  with  violet-coloured  vitreous  pastes  intended  to  imitate 
garnets,  and  there  is  a  similar  round  incrustation  in  the  middle 
of  the  foot.     The  piece  probably  dates  in  the  first  half  of  VII. 

Turning  now  to  some  examples  of  animal  ornament  on 
saucer  brooches  we  must  bear  in  mind  a  remark  previously 
made  (p.  329)  about  the  absence  of  interlacing  in  this  work 
in  VI.  No.  8  on  PI.  lxviii  is  one  of  the  applied  fibulae  from 
Kempston,  Beds,  and  has  a  band  of  animal  ornament  sur- 
rounding a  central  medallion  marked  out  into  eight  spaces  by 
what  looks  like  a  Maltese  cross  but  has  probably  no  Christian 
significance  (p.  117  f.).  On  the  band  we  should  say  at  first 
sight  was  a  play  of  interlacing  triple  ribbons x  but  the  impres- 
sion would  be  erroneous.  Conspicuous  above  and  slightly  to 
the  left  is  a  bent  leg  with  its  claws.  The  three  strands  below 
this  mark  its  junction  with  the  body,  and  they  do  not  as  it 
might  appear  plunge  under  the  forms  next  to  them.  The 
strands  which  partly  surround  the  dots  that  indicate  eyes  do 
not  go  on  any  further  but  just  represent  the  brows,  and  other 

1  These  'ribbons'  are  really  degenerate  versions  of  a  form  bounded  on 
each  side  by  contour  lines,  upon  which  Dr.  Salin's  book,  p.  242,  may  be  con- 
sulted. The  middle  part  of  the  body  between  the  contour  lines  has  shrunk 
to  a  similar  line  making  a  third  with  the  other  two. 


LXVIII 

facing  p.  341 


LATER  ANIMAL  ORNAMENT 


2,  3,  4,  slightly  reduced  ;   7,  9,  somewhat  enlarged 


LATE  ANIMAL  ORNAMENT  341 

ribbons  that  come  between  the  feet  and  the  eyes  stand  in  each 
case  by  themselves  for  a  creature's  body.  The  only  two  dis- 
tinctive parts  of  the  animal  that  can  here  be  identified  are  the 
legs  and  the  eyes,  and  it  is  curious  to  find  these  features  surviv- 
ing when  all  else  has  become  an  unintelligible  medley  of  lines. 
On  this  piece  in  the  triangular  spaces  between  the  arms  of  the 
cross  are  legs  pure  and  simple,  and  the  leg  by  itself  becomes 
a  familiar  motive  in  the  later  examples  of  this  style,  while  the 
appearance  of  a  round  dot  standing  for  an  eye  in  unintelligible 
surroundings  means  the  survival  of  this  one  feature  in  the 
shipwreck  of  a  creature's  anatomy.  These  dots  occur  on  the 
Kingston  fibula,  see  Frontispiece,  in  the  panels  which  other- 
wise seem  to  be  filled  only  with  meaningless  filigree.  Legs 
by  themselves  as  ornamental  motives  may  be  illustrated  by 
PI.  lxviii,  3,  a  saucer  brooch  from  Filkins,  Oxfordshire,  if  in. 
in  diameter,  where  they  are  well  made  out,  and  by  the  two 
smaller  brooches  which  flank  it  in  the  photograph,  PI.  lxviii, 
2,  4,  from  Broughton  Poggs  in  the  same  county,  if  in.  across, 
where  the  motive  is  hardly  intelligible  except  when  interpreted 
by  the  better  specimens.  It  is  worthy  of  remark  here,  as 
illustrating  what  was  said  previously  (p.  314  f.),  that  the  orna- 
ment round  the  borders  of  the  two  brooches  last  mentioned 
resembles  the  classical  '  egg  and  dart,'  though  the  brooches 
must  belong  to  quite  a  late  period.  Four  legs  set  whorl- 
fashion,  after  a  style  which  we  have  seen  represented  on  some 
of  the  sceat  coins,  PI.  vin  (p.  99),  adorn  the  Alfriston 
saucer  brooch  at  Lewes,  1^  in.  in  diameter,  PI.  lxviii,  7,  and 
as  a  triquetra  the  same  forms  fill  the  centre  of  PI.  lxviii,  5, 
from  near  Droxford,  Hants,  in  the  Museum  at  Winchester. 
The  outer  circle  here  brings  the  head  into  evidence  as  the 
main  motive,  several  times  repeated.  Lastly  on  this  plate, 
No.  9,  also  an  Alfriston  piece  at  Lewes,  1^  in.  across,  shows 
boldly  designed  animal  motives,  with  some  of  the  plastic  feeling 
of  the  square  headed  brooches  of  PL  lxvii,  motives  that 
are  however,  so  far  as  one  can  see,  quite  disconnected  and 


342  MOTIVES  OF  ORNAMENT 

have  more  of  the  appearance  of  interlacing  than  the  other 
examples  we  have  been  examining.  This  Alfriston  fibula  has 
the  peculiarity  that  its  pin  catch  is  singularly  long,  standing 
out  ^  in.  from  the  plate  at  the  back.  This  is  a  characteristic 
of  many  early  brooches,  and  is  sometimes  taken  as  a  criterion 
of  date.  We  find  it  here  on  a  specimen  that  is  certainly  not 
an  early  one.  With  this  can  be  taken  No.  i  on  the  same 
plate,  a  portion  of  the  metal  rim  of  a  wooden  bowl  found  at 
the  Old  Park,  Dover,  and  now  in  the  Museum  of  that  town. 
It  has  on  it  in  repousse  work  a  collection  of  heterogeneous 
forms  amongst  which  a  leg  or  an  eye  can  in  most  parts  be 
discerned.  The  forms  do  not  interlace,  for  when  one  triple 
ribbon  seems  to  plunge  under  its  neighbour  this  is  merely  delu- 
sive and  the  arrangement  is  the  same  as  that  on  PI.  lxviii,  8, 
only  far  looser. 

In  some  parts  of  this  instructive  piece,  PI.  lxviii,  i,  there 
are  distinct  indications  of  a  spiral  at  the  end  of  a  leg  where  it 
ought  to  articulate  with  the  body.  This  is  extremely  signi- 
ficant, for  as  Dr.  Salin  has  shown x  the  spiral  in  this  part  is  a 
feature  of  animal  ornament  which  only  comes  into  use  in  his 
Style  in  at  the  end  of  VII,  where  we  find  it  on  the  beast  forms 
so  wonderfully  designed  in  the  Gospels  of  Lindisfarne.  Now 
if  the  reader  will  refer  back  to  PL  lxv,  he  will  find  in  Nos. 
2  and  3  a  couple  of  showy  square-headed  fibulae  in  silver,  the 
one,  No.  2,  found  at  Richborough  in  Kent,  the  other,  No.  3, 
4  in.  long,  from  a  warrior's  grave  at  Gilton,  Kent.  They  are 
handsome  pieces,  and  are  instructive  as  combining  some  early 
motives,  such  as  the  quatrefoil  in  the  centre  of  the  foot  of 
No.  3,  with  very  late  ones  as  in  the  debased  animal  ornament 
on  the  head  of  No.  2.  Of  special  significance  as  indicating  an 
advanced  period  are  the  *  S '  shaped  patterns  of  filigree  sur- 
rounding a  set  stone  on  the  disc  adorning  the  bow  of  No.  2, 
in  a  late  Kentish  style  of  the  latter  half  of  VII,  and,  more 
especially,  the  spirals  that  make  their  appearance  in  the  animals 
1  Thierornamentik,  p.  273. 


7, 

x 
o 

I — I 

u 
& 

U 

o 

w 
o 


DEGRADED  ANIMAL  ORNAMENT  343 

on  each  side  of  the  head  of  No.  3.  These  spirals  are  evidently 
intended  to  mark  the  articulation  of  the  leg  with  the  body  and 
for  the  reasons  given  above  they  look  towards  the  end  of  that 
century.  There  are  similar  spirals  also  in  the  lower  corners  of 
the  central  panel  of  the  head  plate,  the  animals  in  which  are 
analysed  by  Dr.  Salin  though  from  a  faulty  drawing  as  belong- 
ing to  the  latest  period  of  his  Style  1.  See  his  fig.  704.  Of 
these  two  fibulae  No.  3  is  the  best,  and  it  is  interesting  to  note 
that  the  full-faced  heads  on  the  side  rounds  of  the  foot  in 
No.  3  are  degraded  in  No.  2  to  meaningless  geometrical  forms, 
while  the  cross  at  the  bottom  of  No.  2  has  probably  Christian 
significance.  It  would  be  dangerous  at  the  same  time  to 
relegate  No.  3  to  a  very  late  date  on  the  strength  of  the 
spirals  for  the  piece  was  found  in  a  grave  at  Gilton  with  a 
complete  warrior's  equipment  of  sword,  shield,  and  spear,  and 
in  that  part  of  the  country  such  a  burial  would  hardly  fall  later 
than  the  first  half  or  perhaps  the  middle  of  VII.  There  was 
also  found  with  it  part  of  a  silver  ornament,  shown  in  the 
inset  at  the  bottom  of  the  plate,  on  which,  to  the  left,  is  a 
bird  fairly  well  designed.  No.  2  may  belong  to  the  latter  half 
of  VII,  as  it  seems  distinctly  later  than  No.  3. 

To  complete  this  subject  there  have  been  brought  together 
on  PI.  lxix  one  or  two  examples  illustrating  the  last  stage  of 
degeneration  in  the  motives  which  have  occupied  attention  for 
the  last  score  of  pages.  In  the  centre,  No.  3,  is  a  cruciform 
brooch  from  Longbridge,  Warwickshire,  in  the  British  Museum 
collection,  that  is  about  as  flat  in  effect  and  debased  in  design 
and  workmanship  as  any  piece  that  could  be  adduced.  There 
are  square  headed  fibulae  quite  equally  degraded,  and  a  large 
florid  example  in  the  Bede  House  Museum  at  Melton 
Mowbray  may  be  referred  to  as  an  example,  but  PI.  lxix,  3 
is  sufficient  to  show  the  style.  It  should  not  be  overlooked 
that  the  hammer-head  projection  at  the  top  is  very  like  what 
appears  in  the  same  place  at  Kenninghall,  PI.  lxiv,  2.  Flank- 
ing this  on  the  plate  are  No.  1,  an  Ashmolean  specimen  of 


344  MOTIVES  OF  ORNAMENT 

the  saucer  fibula  from  Wheatley,  Oxon,  where  forms  that 
are  or  are  meant  to  be  the  disjecta  membra  of  quadrupeds 
are  simply  packed  together  anyhow  in  the  field  around  a 
central  garnet,  and  No.  2,  a  specimen  at  Worcester  from 
Bidford,  Warwickshire,  i\  in.  in  diameter,  where  purely 
linear  ornament  is  so  carelessly  designed  that  at  the  top  two 
of  the  plain  triangles  run  into  each  other,  while  on  the  other 
side  No.  5  shows  relics  of  animals'  heads  alternating  with 
triangular  spaces  in  which  the  setting  of  stones  is  indicated  by 
lines,  and  No.  4,  a  crisply  wrought  piece,  gives  in  the  centre 
an  intelligible  face  but  round  the  border  forms  that  seem 
purely  arbitrary  and  have  lost  any  resemblance  they  may  once 
have  possessed  to  parts  of  the  animal  organization.1 

The  foregoing  analysis  may  have  appeared  in  parts  tediously 
minute,  but  it  is  needful  to  examine  somewhat  narrowly  into 
details  as  a  very  small  indication  sometimes  justifies  an  im- 
portant deduction.  It  will  have  been  seen  however  that  an 
analysis  of  the  kind  may  result  in  disappointingly  negative 
conclusions  for  it  often  happens  that  a  composite  piece,  such 
as  the  Bifrons  fibula,  PI.  lxii,  or  the  two  silver  fibulae  just 
analysed,  has  on  one  part  of  it  early  on  another  part  compara- 
tively late  indications,  and  our  judgement  of  the  date  will 
depend  upon  which  of  these  is  most  prominent  in  our  mind. 
In  a  sub-class  again  like  that  of  the  square  headed  fibulae 
without  animal  ornament,  some  members  of  the  class  may 
exhibit  nothing  inconsistent  with  an  early  date  while  other 
specimens  betray  very  suspicious  symptoms.  In  such  cases 
decisions  as  to  date  must  be  made  with  some  reserve.  With 
this  proviso  however  we  can  with  some  confidence  distribute 
the  enriched  fibulae  which  have  been  passed  in  review  over  the 

1  No.  4  is  from  East  Shefford,  Berks,  in  the  British  Museum  ;  No.  5 
was  found  in  a  cinerary  urn  in  a  tumulus  at  Marton  near  Rugby,  and  is 
now  in  the  School  Museum,  Rugby.  The  find  has  been  already  adduced 
(p.  147)  as  a  proof  of  the  late  survival  in  England  of  the  practice  of  cremation. 


DATE  OF  LATEST  EXAMPLES  345 

space  of  time  between  about  500  and  650  a.d.  Some  may 
belong  to  the  last  half  of  V  and  this  would  apply  to  saucer  or 
applied  or  square  headed  fibulae  with  linear  classical  motives, 
or  to  pieces  in  which  the  animal  form  is  represented  in  a 
consistent  anatomical  structure.  Others  in  which  the  effect 
is  very  flat,  the  work  careless,  and  the  motives  hopelessly 
blundered  and  scattered  aimlessly  over  the  field,  may  be  later 
than  the  middle  of  VII,  but  the  vast  majority  of  pieces  in 
which  animal  ornament  occurs  in  the  various  stages  of  dis- 
memberment belong  to  the  latter  half  of  VI  and  the  first  part 
of  VII  while  the  appearance  of  the  interlacing  motive  betokens 
the  first  half  or  middle  of  the  latter  century. 


CHAPTER  VII 

TOMB  FURNITURE  :   (IV)  BUCKLES  AND  OTHER 
ADJUNCTS  OF  THE  DRESS 

We  now  resume  the  main  subject  of  this  part  of  the  present 
work,  the  detailed  inventory  of  Anglo-Saxon  tomb  furniture 
especially  as  it  is  represented  in  the  Kentish  cemetery  of 
Bifrons.  The  next  item  is  the  buckle,  which  we  saw  possesses 
a  near  affinity  with  the  annular  form  of  fibula,  the  last  noticed 
under  that  heading  prior  to  the  long  but  necessary  digression 
on  ornamentation  and  technique. 

No  repetition  is  needed  of  what  was  said  (p.  244  f.)  about  the 
relation  between  the  fibula  and  the  buckle  and  the  question 
of  the  latter's  origin.  It  was  noted  in  connection  with  the 
last  that  buckles  both  in  the  simplest  and  in  an  enriched 
form  have  been  found  at  Pompeii  and  Herculaneum,  so 
the  type  is  Roman  though  it  was  not  developed  amongst 
the  classical  peoples. 

For  the  history  of  the  buckle  in  its  Teutonic  form  Bifrons 
supplies  us  with  an  excellent  starting  point.  PI.  lxx  shows  a 
portion  of  one  of  the  cards  on  which  half  a  century  ago  the 
gamekeeper's  daughter  neatly  sewed  down  the  smaller  objects 
recovered  from  the  teeming  cemetery  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
park.  There  are  two  enriched  buckles  here  of  special  interest, 
Nos.  6,  9,  which  will  be  noticed  in  connection  with  certain 
romanizing  pieces  discussed  in  Chapter  x.  There  are  others 
of  the  distinct  buckle  form,  Nos.  1,  5,  7,  8,  to  which  the  belt 
or  band  was  attached  after  the  manner  of  a  modern  strap,  and 
a  third  kind  in  which  the  attachment  is  made  by  means  of  a 
thin  metal  plate  folded  over  the  end  of  the  band  and  riveted 

346 


LXX 

facing  p.  347 


BUCKLES  OF  SIMPLE  TYPES  AT  BIFRONS  HOUSE 

LXX 


BUCKLES  OF  SIMPLE  FORM  347 

to  it,  Nos.  10,  11.  This  is  technically  termed  the  'chape' 
but  is  more  often  called  '  buckle  plate.'  Differences  in  size 
will  be  noticed,  as  for  example  between  Nos.  5  and  1 1 ,  sug- 
gesting use  in  connection  with  more  than  one  article  of  attire. 
Furthermore  there  are  also  three  pieces,  Nos.  2,  3,  4,  about 
which  a  question  might  be  raised  whether  they  are  buckles  or 
annular  fibulae.  The  shape  of  the  ring  in  Nos.  2,  3  suggests 
the  former,  in  No.  4  it  suggests  the  latter,  and  nothing  could 
better  illustrate  the  close  relation  between  the  two  types  of 
fastening.  The  simple  buckles  without  any  plate  for  attach- 
ment are  generally  considered  early,  but  it  must  be  remembered 
that  such  pieces  would  probably  remain  always  in  use  even  at 
a  time  when  the  buckle  had  developed  to  very  showy  forms. 
In  the  neolithic  period  stone  axes  were  elaborately  polished, 
but  every  polished  axe  must  first  have  been  a  chipped  one  and 
chipped  axes  that  never  succeeded  in  getting  polished  may  be 
of  neolithic  date.  So  simple  buckles  may  be  comparatively 
late,  for  it  was  not  every  one  who  could  afford  them  in  the 
fashionable  enriched  form.  The  cemetery  at  King's  Field, 
Faversham,  is  not  a  particularly  early  site,  but  a  large  number 
of  simple  buckles  were  found  in  it.  Still  the  criterion  of  date 
in  question  is  not  a  negligible  one. 

Examples  of  the  simple  buckles  might  easily  be  multiplied 
but  those  on  PI.  lxx  are  sufficient.  The  difference  between 
these  and  the  vast  iron  buckles  of  the  Burgundians  and  Franks 
measuring  like  the  one  on  PI.  xvn,  1  (p.  175),  some  15  in. 
by  3^-  in.,  is  no  doubt  enormous,  but  though  the  quantitative 
change  is  so  great  morphological  complications  are  absent. 
The  essential  parts  of  the  piece,  the  ring,  the  pin,  and  the 
hinges  which  admit  of  the  necessary  movements,  remain 
practically  the  same,  and  the  chief  variation  is  in  the  methods 
of  securing  mobility  in  tongue  or  ring  and  of  attaching  behind 
the  ring  the  strap  or  band.  Various  adjuncts  partly  for  use 
but  chiefly  for  show  also  come  to  be  added  before  the  equip- 
ment is  complete.     Lindenschmit  in  his  Handbuch,  p.  358  f., 


348  THE  BUCKLE 

analyses  the  methods  in  question  comparing  Germanic  with 
Roman,  and  to  his  demonstration  the  reader  may  be  referred. 
One  point  should  be  noticed  and  this  is  that  the  small  pro- 
longation of  the  tongue  at  the  back,  as  in  PI.  lxx,  i,  is 
Teutonic  rather  than  classical. 

For  the  beginning  of  the  development  of  the  enriched 
buckle  we  may  go  to  the  northern  shores  of  the  Black  Sea 
where  have  been  found  a  large  number  of  small  but  massive 
buckles  of  silver  and  gold,  set  at  the  back  of  the  pin  with  inlays 
of  garnet.  No.  i  on  PL  lxxi  shows  three  examples  from  the 
Museum  fur  Volkerkunde  at  Berlin,  and  there  are  two  others 
from  the  British  Museum  on  PI.  cxliii  (p.  525)  of  which 
No.  5  is  from  Hungary.  PI.  lxxi,  2,  shows  an  example  of 
later  date,  with  garnet  inlays,  from  Crundale,  Kent.  The 
earliest  of  these  may  go  back  to  about  IV.  These  plates  at 
the  back  of  the  pin  are  primarily  for  use,  as  they  are  double 
and  between  the  two  surfaces  the  end  of  the  strap  or  band 
is  introduced  and  held  fast  by  rivets  the  heads  of  which  are 
in  evidence.  They  also  become  things  of  art,  varying  in 
shape  and  adorned  in  every  technique  and  style  represented  in 
the  period.  The  back  plates  at  first  belong  to  the  pin  with 
which  they  sometimes  form  a  single  piece,  as  in  PI.  lxxi,  2, 
but  those  in  specimens  like  PL  lxx,  10,  11,  belong  to  the 
ring  round  which  they  are  bent,  and  it  may  be  noted  here  as 
a  matter  of  construction  that  the  back  plate  and  the  ring  may 
be  in  one  piece,  in  which  case  the  tongue  is  hinged  so  as  to 
lift  for  the  admission  of  the  strap  ;  or  the  tongue  and  the  back 
plate  may  be  inseparable,  when  the  ring  is  hinged  so  as  to 
drop  when  the  strap  is  to  be  inserted  ;  or  else  there  may  be 
two  hinges  and  all  three  parts  may  be  mutually  accommodat- 
ing. Buckles  are  usually  of  metal  but  there  are  bone  ones, 
of  which  PL  lii,  4  (p.  293),  and  PL  lxxiv,  3  are  examples,  and 
buckle  rings  are  also  found  occasionally  of  rock  crystal,  ivory 
and  meerschaum. 

A  simple  example  of  ornament  applied  to  a  buckle  plate  is 


LXXI 

facing  p.  349 


EARLY  GOTHIC  AND  OTHER  BUCKLES 


i,  4,  6,  about  natural  size  ;  5,  considerably  enlarged 
/,  3,  are  Continental 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  CHAPE  349 

seen  PI.  lxxi,  5.  It  is  an  interesting  little  buckle  found  at 
East  Boldon  in  County  Durham  and  now  in  the  Museum  of 
the  Society  of  Antiquaries  of  Newcastle-on-Tyne,  and  is  figured 
on  an  enlarged  scale  as  it  is  rather  a  valuable  object-lesson 
in  the  matter  of  dating.  The  back  of  the  plate  is,  or  was  for 
one  is  lost,  adorned  with  three  garnets  set  '  en  cabochon,'  or, 
as  they  would  be  popularly  termed,  three  carbuncles,  with  a 
little  frill  round  each  made  of  a  beading  worked  in  thin 
metal  in  repousse.  Now  it  so  happens  that  this  particular 
kind  of  work  used  for  setting  rounded  gems  occurs  in  southern 
Russia  at  a  very  early  date  indeed  in  the  migration  period,  and 
Professor  Posta  in  his  valuable  work  on  antiquities  in  that 
district  proves  that  the  piece  from  the  Crimea  in  the  Museum 
at  Odessa,  PL  lxxi,  3,  cannot  date  later  than  about  111  a.d. 
The  likeness  in  technique  of  the  Odessa  trinket  to  the  Boldon 
buckle  is  unmistakable  yet  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  ascribe 
to  the  latter  on  this  ground  an  early  date.  The  incrusted 
garnets  are  no  doubt  an  importation  from  Kent  just  like 
those  which  furnish  eyes  to  the  animals  forming  the  ring 
of  the  annular  brooch  from  Uncleby,  Yorkshire,  given  on 
PI.  li,  7  (p.  287),  which  we  saw  reason  to  date  early  in  VII 
(p.  289).  The  beading  beaten  up  in  a  thin  strip  of  metal  may 
be  used  very  early,  but  it  is  also  familiar  in  the  borders  of  the 
applied  fibulae  of  VI,  and  is  no  sound  criterion  of  date. 

The  development  of  the  back  plate  or  chape  of  the  buckle 
is  the  first  point  of  importance  in  its  morphology.  The  chief 
forms  it  takes  are  those  of  the  round  or  oval,  the  rectangle,  and 
the  triangle,  while  there  is  a  form  of  much  archaeological 
importance  that  has  the  ring  with  its  pin  inserted  into  the 
central  part  of  a  single  large  square  plate.  The  variation  is 
described  and  illustrated  later  on  (p.  557).  The  round  or  oval 
plate  is  common  in  western  France  but  so  rare  among  our- 
selves that  the  few  specimens  known  pass  generally  for 
importations.  One  was  found  near  Lymne,  Kent,  and  was 
figured   by    C.    Roach   Smith,    in    his    Richborough,   Reculver 


350  THE  BUCKLE 

and  Lymne,  p.  264.  Of  another  in  the  Canterbury  Museum 
the  provenance  is  unfortunately  unknown,  but  there  is  at 
Maidstone  a  portion  of  one  that  was  found  in  the  cemetery 
at  Sarre.  The  discoveries  at  Ipswich  in  1 906  produced  a  good 
specimen  which  will  be  found  PL  lxxi,  6.  The  extreme 
rarity  here  of  a  type  so  common  across  the  Channel  is  another 
proof  of  the  independence  of  the  different  provinces  of  this 
early  Teutonic  art. 

Rectangular  plates  are  fairly  common  all  over  the  Germanic 
area  and  are  sometimes  magnificently  adorned  with  inlays.  A 
specimen  in  the  Maclean  collection  in  the  Fitzwilliam  Museum, 
Cambridge,  is  a  fine  piece  but  is  without  question  of  foreign 
provenance.  Rectangular  buckles  are  in  no  form  specially 
characteristic  features  in  Anglo-Saxon  tomb  furniture,  but  we 
have  some  interesting  examples.  One  from  Alfriston,  Sussex, 
will  be  found  PL  cliv,  i  (p.  561).  One  of  the  best  is  figured 
PL  lxxi,  4.  It  is  a  late  piece  found  at  Gilton,  Kent,  and  is 
now  at  Liverpool.  It  is  of  silver  gilt  richly  incrusted  with 
garnets  and  is  3^  in.  long.  A  small  though  sumptuously 
enriched  rectangular  buckle  of  gold  in  the  Ashmolean,  found 
near  Ixworth,  Suffolk,  is  notable  as  containing  the  largest 
garnet  known  in  this  country,  more  than  an  inch  in  length  by 
a  breadth  of  4  in.  It  is  figured  in  colours  by  Akerman  on 
the  first  plate  of  his  Pagan  Saxondom.  The  bronze  specimen 
PL  lxxii,  1,  from  Barfriston,  Kent,  at  Liverpool,  is  of  similar 
shape  but  has  lost  its  jewel.  PL  lxxii,  2,  is  at  Rochester, 
Kent,  and  is  of  unusual  construction.  It  must  have  once 
had  a  pin  though  there  is  no  trace  of  this.  The  plate  is  a 
specimen  of  open  work,  on  which  a  word  may  be  said.  Open 
or  pierced  work  in  bronze  is  common  in  Roman  and  Late- 
Celtic  productions1  and  its  appearance  in  Teutonic  tomb 
furniture  might  be  regarded  as  symptomatic  of  early  date. 
There  are  however  different  kinds  of  open  work  and  some  of 

1  Professor  Bela  Posta  believes  that  the  Romans  adopted  this  style  of 
work  from  the  Celtic  peoples,  Arch'dologische  Studien,  p.  485. 


LXXII 

facing  p.  351 


BUCKLES  WITH  OPEN-WORK  PLATES 


4.  is  Roman  ;  J,  Celtic 


OPEN  WORK  BUCKLE  PLATES  351 

these  are  significant  of  a  quite  advanced  period.  A  beautiful 
piece  of  Roman  pierced  work  in  bronze  at  Bonn  is  shown 
PI.  lxxii,  4,  and  a  Late-Celtic  piece  from  the  famous  Marne 
burials  in  France  in  the  British  Museum  PL  lxxii,  5.  The 
Anglo-Saxon  craftsman  did  not  emulate  this  kind  of  work,  and 
a  piece  of  it  that  came  to  light  in  the  form  of  a  buckle  plate 
in  the  cemetery  at  Sarre,  PI.  clv,  13  (p.  563),  is  of  Romano- 
British  make.  Open  work  of  a  coarser  kind  occurs  in 
Teutonic  tomb  furniture  at  all  periods,  and  comes  specially 
into  vogue  at  any  rate  on  the  Continent  in  the  later  epoch 
called  by  French  antiquaries  {  Carolingian.'  Such  a  specimen 
in  the  form  of  a  belt  clasp  in  the  Grantley  collection  will  be 
seen  on  PL  lxxvii,  i  (p.  361)  and  open  work  'swastika' 
fibulae,  PL  xlviii,  6  (p.  279)  and  similar  pierced  ornaments 
such  as  some  from  Winklebury  Hill,  Dorset,  at  Farnham 
(p.  654  f.),  occur  not  infrequently  in  England.  The  plates  to 
Faussett's  Inventorium  Sepulchrale  exhibit  several  open  work 
buckle  plates  found  in  the  Kentish  cemeteries,  though  his 
'  Fundberichte '  do  not  give  any  distinct  indications  of  date. 
One  of  these  from  Kingston,  i\  in.  long,  is  shown  PL  lxxii,  3, 
and  a  similar  piece  occurred  in  the  rather  late  cemetery  at 
Uncleby  in  Yorkshire,  illustrating  like  so  many  of  the  finds  on 
that  site  the  likeness  to  Kentish  tomb  furniture.  It  is  shown 
PL  lxxii,  6,  and  the  shape  of  the  openings,  recalling  that  of  the 
inlaid  garnets  on  so  many  Kentish  brooches  of  about  600  a.d., 
is  a  striking  point  of  resemblance.  It  may  be  remarked  in 
passing  that  one  kind  of  open  work  buckle  plate  that  often 
occurs  in  Frankish  and  Burgundian  cemeteries  of  the  later 
epoch  has  not  yet  made  its  appearance  in  Anglo-Saxon  graves  ; 
this  is  the  well-known  creature,  sometimes  like  a  horse  at 
other  times  like  a  griffin,  represented  as  drinking  from  a  vase. 
It  is  clear  therefore  that  open  work  is  not  in  itself  a  criterion 
of  early  date,  but  only  open  work  of  the  delicate  and  refined 
character  of  the  Roman  and  Celtic  pieces,  PL  lxxii,  4,  5,  or  of 
the  Kentish  fragment  PL  clv,  i  3 


352  THE  BUCKLE 

The  characteristic  form  of  the  buckle  plate  in  England  is 
the  triangular,  and  it  is  so  specially  well  represented  in  Kent 
that  it  may  be  regarded  as  a  Jutish  production.  Kent  shares 
it  however  with  the  country  of  the  Franks  across  the  Channel, 
where  it  is  also  common.  In  the  rest  of  England  it  occurs 
sporadically  and  its  appearance  there  may  be  due  to  Kentish 
influence.  Some  specimens  may  be  considered  here  from  the 
artistic  standpoint,  as  they  are  often  very  handsome  and 
ornate  pieces  though  they  do  not  run  to  the  exaggerated  size 
of  some  of  the  later  buckles  across  the  Channel.  Points  of 
morphology  may  be  considered  later  on. 

No  specimen  is  more  showy  than  that  given  PI.  lxxiii,  i. 
It  was  found  at  Crundale,  Kent,  and  is  now  in  the  British 
Museum.  The  fish  upon  it  reminds  us  of  a  similar  feature 
on  the  beautiful  jewelled  fibulae  from  Jouy  le  Comte  in  the 
Museum  of  St.  Germain  and  would  suggest  a  Prankish 
provenance,  but  any  one  wishing  to  vindicate  for  it  a  native 
origin  may  point  to  the  garnet  inlays  just  at  the  back  of  the 
pin,  the  stones  in  which  are  small  and  interpenetrate  in  exactly 
the  same  fashion  as  those  on  the  brooches  of  the  '  Abingdon ' 
type  in  the  British  Museum,  the  Fitzwilliam  Museum, 
Cambridge,  and  elsewhere,  which  are  without  doubt  objects  of 
Kentish  manufacture.  For  specimens  see  PI.  cxlv  (p.  S3  3)- 
The  buckle  is  of  VII  date.  Other  ornate  examples  from  Kent 
are  shown  on  the  coloured  plate  B,  iv  (p.  353). 

The  distribution  of  the  buckle  in  Anglo-Saxon  graves  has 
aroused  comment.  On  a  priori  grounds  we  should  expect 
buckles  to  be  numerous  everywhere.  The  knife  is  the  most 
common  article  of  tomb  furniture,  and  though  it  is  only  a 
hypothesis  it  is  a  plausible  one,  that  knives  were  commonly 
carried  in  a  belt  and  that  belts  were  as  a  rule  fastened  by 
buckles.  As  a  fact,  although  buckles  are  found  all  over  the 
Anglo-Saxon  region  they  are  in  many  cemeteries  curiously 
rare,  while  they  may  occur  elsewhere  in  proportionately  large 
numbers.     The  Abbe  Cochet  committed  himself  to  a  general 


PL  B 

facing  p.  353 


PENDANTS,  BEADS,  BUCKLES,   ETC. 


II 


III 


IV 


I,  iv,  about  half-size;   III,  |  natural  size; 

II,  much  reduced 

11  is  Continental 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  BUCKLES  353 

statement  about  Britain  at  large,1  according  to  which  the 
maritime  counties  and  those  on  the  great  rivers  were  much 
better  equipped  with  buckles  than  the  inland  districts,  and 
Baron  de  Baye2  quotes  the  opinion  with  favour.  There  would 
be  no  possible  significance  in  this  unless  the  buckle  were 
supposed  to  be  an  imported  article,  and  this  has  never  been 
suggested.  The  generalization  is  not  of  real  value,  and  the 
Abbe  mentions  Northamptonshire  as  well  supplied  though 
this  is  quite  an  inland  county,  whereas  the  riparian  Berkshire 
showed  in  its  chief  cemeteries  Long  Wittenham  and  Frilford 
a  remarkable  dearth.  A  more  promising  explanation  may  be 
found  in  chronology.  Kent,  it  has  been  noticed,  is  in  general 
better  supplied  than  the  rest  of  the  kingdom,  and  in  the 
normal  abundance  of  Kentish  tomb  furniture  this  need  not 
surprise  us.  Now  within  the  county  itself,  in  those  cemeteries 
the  contents  of  which  are  summarized  in  Faussett's  Inventorium 
Sepulchrale,  buckles  were  many  times  more  numerous  than 
fibulae,  and  at  Uncleby  in  Yorkshire,  a  cemetery  the  objects 
in  which  resembled  Kentish  tomb  furniture,  there  were  in 
more  than  70  graves  26  buckles  to  8  brooches.8  At  Bifrons 
however  this  proportion  seems  to  have  been  reversed,  for 
among  about  200  small  objects  from  this  cemetery  sewn  upon 
cards  there  are  about  ^  fibulae  and  25  buckles,  while  47 
fibulae  to  38  buckles  is  the  proportion  in  the  official  inventory 
of  the  other  Bifrons  graves  given  in  Archaeologia  Cantiana? 
At  Ozengell  again,  not  one  of  Faussett's  cemeteries,  the  Abbe 
Cochet  remarks  on  the  very  scanty  supply  of  the  objects.5  Is 
it  without  significance  that  while  the  Faussett  cemeteries  are 
as  a  rule  late  ones,  Bifrons  is  on  the  whole  comparatively 
early,  and  the  same  is  true  of  Ozengell  ?  The  Bifrons  buckles, 
it  may  be  noted,  shown  on  PI.  lxx  are  of  simple  and  pre- 

1  Le  Tombeau  de  Cbilderic,  p.  268. 

2  The  Industrial  Arts  of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  p.  90. 

3  Proc.  Soc.  Ant.,  xxiv,  146  f.  4  Vols,  x  and  xm. 
5  Le  Tombeau  de  Cbilderic,  p.  272. 

Ill  z 


354  THE  BUCKLE 

sumably  early  types.  How  far,  we  may  ask,  does  the  evidence 
from  cemeteries  in  other  parts  bear  out  the  presumption 
thus  suggested,  that  buckles  are  less  common  in  the  earlier 
cemeteries  than  in  later  ones  because  the  object  was  in  itself  in 
the  migration  period  of  comparatively  recent  introduction  ? 

The  absence  of  buckles  is  certainly  in  several  Midland 
cemeteries  not  a  little  surprising.  Little  Wilbraham,  Cambs, 
with  its  wealth  of  fibulae,  125  in  number,  only  furnished  to 
the  careful  explorer  13  buckles  from  188  skeletons.1  At 
Barrington,  Cambridgeshire,  with  114  graves,  31  of  which 
contained  no  furniture,  there  were  24  buckles  to  55  fibulae, 
and  while  Little  Wilbraham  in  general  supplied  fairly  early 
objects  those  from  the  latter  cemetery  seem  decidedly  later. 
Again  at  Kempston,  Beds,  where  very  early  things  were  found, 
only  one  buckle  or  object  suggesting  the  buckle  form  is 
included  in  the  inventory,2  and  at  Fairford,  Gloucestershire, 
Mr.  Wylie 3  only  notes  one,  perhaps  two,  buckles,  whereas  the 
fibulae,  mostly  of  the  saucer  or  applied  type  which  is  of  early 
appearance,  were  numerous.  In  his  two  years'  exploration  of 
Frilford  cemetery,  Berks,  where  he  reported  on  123  skeletons, 
Professor  Rolleston  only  found  a  single  buckle,4  and  Frilford, 
like  Long  Wittenham  a  partly  cremation  cemetery,  is  an  early 
one. 

Apart  from  these  chronological  considerations  there  is 
another  reason  why  buckles  in  general  are  less  frequently 
found  than  we  should  expect.  At  Fairford  and  at  Kempston 
the  explorers  noticed  that  there  was  a  knife  in  nearly  every 
grave,  and  this  would  make  the  absence  of  the  normal  belt 
fastenings  somewhat  surprising,  but  it  may  be  partly  accounted 
for  on  the  following  grounds.  While  the  fibula  was  normally 
of  bronze  and  was  in  most  cases  ornamented,  the  buckle  was 

1  Neville,  Saxon  Obsequies,  Lond.,  1852,  graves  26,  28,  35,  46,  73,  151, 
160,  168,  169. 

2  Associated  Societies'  Reports,  1864,  p.  293. 

3  Fairford  Graves,  Oxford,  1852.  4  Archaeologia,  xlii,  483. 


LXXIII 


facing  p.  355 


BRONZE  AND  IRON  BUCKLES 

LAX  IN 


i,  2,  are  |-  natural  size 
J,  4,  are  Continental 


IRON  AND  BRONZE  BUCKLES  355 

very  commonly  of  iron,  and,  as  was  noticed  above  (p.  245), 
was  plainer  and  more  utilitarian.  Buckles  made  of  iron  must 
very  commonly  have  perished,  or,  lying,  as  they  would,  not 
conspicuously  by  the  head  but  about  the  middle  of  the  body, 
have  escaped  notice  owing  to  their  reduction  by  rust  to  an 
indistinct  mass.  On  PI.  lxxv  No.  3  shows  a  rusted  iron 
buckle  of  the  kind  from  the  early  cemetery  at  Mitcham, 
Surrey,  and  one  or  two  in  the  same  sort  of  condition  from 
Bifrons  are  in  the  K.  A.  S.  Museum  at  Maidstone.  A  more 
ornate  specimen  in  the  same  metal  PI.  lxxv,  4,  comes  from 
Croydon,  Surrey.  Kent  was  undoubtedly  one  of  the  richest 
parts  of  the  country,  and  buckles  were  more  likely  to  be  made 
of  bronze  there  than  in  other  districts.  If  iron  elsewhere  were 
the  normal  material  for  the  buckle  we  should  obtain  a  reason 
for  its  very  partial  survival,  and  should  at  the  same  time  find 
the  key  to  a  curious  morphological  problem  connected  with  it. 
This  problem  arises  from  the  presence  in  bronze  buckles 
of  features  that  have  no  present  significance  and  wear  the 
appearance  of  survivals.  Iron  buckles  it  must  be  remembered 
were  forged  while  the  bronze  ones  were  cast.  The  large  iron 
buckle  plates  of  Burgundian  and  Frankish  type  were  fastened 
to  the  belt  by  means  of  studs  generally  of  bronze,  the  shanks 
of  which  passed  through  apertures  in  the  plate  and  through 
the  leather  or  linen  of  the  belt,  on  the  under  side  of  which  they 
were  fixed  by  pins  which  traversed  them,  or  in  some  other 
fashion.  The  Faversham  buckle  plate  at  Maidstone  shown 
PI.  lxxiii,  2,  that  measures  6  in.  in  length  and  is  one  of  the 
few  large  iron  buckles  found  in  this  country,  shows  distinctly 
the  heads  of  bronze  studs  of  the  kind.  In  the  case  of  the 
bronze  buckle  plate  which  was  always  cast,  it  was  easy  to  make 
in  the  same  piece  projecting  tangs  at  the  back  that  were 
inserted  through  holes  in  the  belt  and  fixed  with  pins  through 
them.  PI.  lxxiii,  3,  shows  this  arrangement  in  the  case  of 
a  cast  bronze  buckle  at  Brussels.  Notwithstanding  this,  the 
buckle  was  supplied  on  the  front  with  the  projecting  round 


356  THE  BUCKLE 

heads  of  studs  like  those  which  fix  the  iron  buckle  plates,  and 
such  rounded  projections  appear  almost  universally  on  the 
triangular  plates  of  the  bronze  buckles  both  at  home  and 
abroad.  It  is  true  that  there  are  cases  in  which  such  studs  are 
used  in  the  cast  bronze  buckle  as  effective  fastenings,  as  for 
example  PL  lxxiii,  4,  a  piece  dating  about  VII,  from  Wan- 
cennes,  in  the  Museum  at  Namur,  but  this  is  exceptional,  and 
the  studs  are  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases  purely  decorative. 
No.  5  on  PL  lxxiii,  a  cast  bronze  buckle  in  the  Canterbury 
Museum,  exhibits  them  as  cast  in  one  piece  with  the  plate. 
Of  this  the  provenance  is  unknown  and  it  may  be  of  con- 
tinental origin.  It  is  figured  here  partly  for  its  ornament 
which  consists  in  the  rather  rare  and  always  late  interlacing 
work.  Arguing  according  to  the  recognized  canons  of  typo- 
logy, we  should  conclude  that  iron  buckle  plates  with  effective 
studs  had  preceded  the  bronze  ones  in  which  the  studs  have 
become  purely  decorative,  an  order  of  things  we  have  seen 
paralleled  in  the  case  of  the  sword  pommels.  Now  this  could 
not  apply  to  the  very  large  plated  iron  buckles  already  referred 
to  (p.  174)  because  these  are  later  in  date  than  the  bronze 
buckles  in  question,  but  it  is  quite  possible  that  smaller  and 
simpler  iron  buckles,  such  as  PL  lxxv,  3,  were  commonly  worn 
at  an  earlier  period  and  set  the  fashion  for  the  bronze  ones, 
while  being  of  a  corrosible  material  they  may  have  perished  in 
large  numbers  and  so  may  partly  explain  the  curious  gaps  in 
the  inventories  of  tomb  furniture  to  which  attention  has  been 
called. 

Certain  adjuncts  of  the  buckle  have  been  referred  to  (p.  347). 
The  most  important  of  these  is  termed  sometimes  the  com- 
plementary plate.  It  consists  in  an  addition  on  the  other 
side  of  the  buckle  ring  of  a  second  plate  corresponding 
in  size  and  shape  to  the  buckle  plate  proper.  This  was 
fastened  to  the  belt  quite  independently  of  the  buckle,  and 
fastened  too  by  the  same  sort  of  permanent  attachments,  but 
in  such  a  position   that  when   the   free  end  of  the   belt  was 


LXXIV 

facing  p.  357 


ADJUNCTS  OF  THE  BUCKLE  357 

passed  through  the  buckle  ring  and  drawn  up  tight,  the  com- 
plementary plate  would  come  close  up  to  the  latter.  Indeed 
as  will  be  seen  by  reference  to  the  large  buckle  at  Fribourg 
PI.  xviii,  1  (p.  177),  or  the  Brussels  buckle  PI.  lxxiii,  3,  the 
edge  of  this  plate  is  indented  so  as  to  allow  the  end  of  the 
tongue  of  the  buckle  that  projects  beyond  the  ring  to  fit  into 
it.  It  is  rather  puzzling  to  see  how  this  arrangement  would 
work  in  practice,  as  it  precludes  any  temporary  adjustment 
of  the  fastening  of  the  belt  with  a  view  to  loosening  or 
tightening  it.  The  lady  could  never  have  taken  in  her 
waistband  when  she  smartened  herself  up  to  receive  callers, 
nor  could  her  lord  have  let  his  out  a  hole  or  two  after  one 
of  those  huge  meals,  which  the  more  delicately  bred  Roman 
provincials  like  Sidonius  Apollinaris  could  not  stomach.  This 
complementary  plate  might  have  been  made  to  slide  backwards 
and  forwards  on  the  belt  to  allow  for  such  adjustments,  but 
as  we  have  just  seen  it  was  fixed  in  its  place. 

With  the  buckle  proper  and  its  own  plate  and  the  com- 
plementary one  there  is  sometimes  found  a  square  plaque  of 
the  same  material  and  pattern.  Dr.  Lindenschmit *  claimed 
to  have  proved  from  the  position  in  which  this  has  been  found 
that  it  was  fastened  at  the  back  of  the  belt. 

The  cemeteries  of  Gaul  have  furnished  examples  of  the 
complete  parure  consisting  of  buckle  with  buckle  plate,  com- 
plementary plate  and  square  piece  of  corresponding  design.2 
The  writer  has  met  with  no  example  of  the  kind  in  this 
country,  and  even  complementary  plates  are  very  rare.  A 
well  preserved  bronze  buckle  with  such  a  plate  from  Barfriston, 
Kent,  measuring  together  nearly  7  in.  in  length,  is  given 
PI.  lxxiv,  1,  and  one  with  the  square  back  plate  from 
Sibertswold,  Kent,  PI.  lxxiv,  2.  Both  suites  are  in  the 
Mayer-Faussett  collection  at  Liverpool,  and  Nos.  5  and  4 
on  the  plate  show  the  backs  of  Nos.  1  and  2  with  the  original 

1  Handbuch,  p.  355. 

2  See  for  example  Pilloy,  Etudes,  1,  pi.  A,  opposite  p.  136. 


358  THE  BUCKLE 

labels  in  the  writing  of  the  Rev.  Bryan  Faussett  still  attached 
to  them. 

A  series  of  square  plates  was  sometimes  attached  along 
the  belt  to  add  to  its  handsome  appearance.  At  Mitcham 
such  a  series  was  found  and  it  is  now  in  the  Vestry  Hall 
at  that  place,  PI.  lxxv,  i.  These  plates  were  intended  to 
be  riveted  on,  and  the  length  of  the  small  rivets  at  the  four 
corners  of  the  plate  shows  that  the  belt  was  of  the  thickness 
of  about  -£%  in.,  but  there  are  others  in  the  case  of  which 
there  is  a  double  thickness  of  the  bronze,  and  the  belt  or 
strap  passes  between  them.  That  from  Stowting,  PL  lxxv,  6, 
at  Stowting  Rectory,  Kent,  was  for  riveting  on.  It  is 
illustrated  partly  as  an  example  of  the  somewhat  clumsy  kind 
of  ornamentation  applied  at  times  by  the  Saxon  artificer  to 
bronze,  where  the  marks  seem  to  have  been  scored  by  main 
force  in  the  metal.  On  the  other  hand  the  piece  from 
our  Bifrons  cemetery  in  the  Maidstone  K.  A.  S.  Museum, 
PL  lxxv,  2,  are  double  and  the  band  passed  between  the  two 
plates,  being  riveted  through  at  the  top  and  bottom.  Only 
the  corner  rivets  are  really  effective,  the  four  intermediate 
ones  being  imitation  rivet  heads.  The  two  smaller  plates  at 
the  ends  of  the  row  of  five  are  made  to  double  over  the 
strap  and  are  only  riveted  along  the  upper  edges.  The 
surfaces  are  tinned,  and  the  swastika  ornament  is  in  evidence 
on  the  three  larger  plates. 

Another  adjunct  to  the  belt  or  strap  used  in  connection 
with  the  buckle  is  the  well-known  tag  or  strap  end  with  which 
the  termination  of  the  band  was  equipped  in  order  to  facilitate 
the  passing  of  it  through  the  ring  of  the  buckle  and  at  the 
same  time  to  give  it  a  finished  look  as  it  hung  down  loose  in 
front.  In  the  tomb  inventories  of  some  Teutonic  districts,  as 
for  example  Hungary,  these  strap  ends  bulk  very  largely  and 
were  the  recipients  of  the  special  attention  of  the  ornamental- 
ist.  Among  ourselves  they  are  neither  numerous  nor  elabor- 
ately adorned,  but  it  is  worth  noting  that  there  is  a  class  of 


LXXV 

facing  p.  358 


LXXVI 

facing  p.  359 


STRAP  ENDS,  SPIRAL  WIRE  CLASPS,  ETC. 


i»>:4hi 


All  approximately  natural  size 


'SHOE  SHAPED'  STUDS  359 

them  enriched  in  an  interesting  fashion  that  can  be  dated  on 
sure  evidence  to  about  IX.  These  as  specimens  of  later 
Anglo-Saxon  art  will  be  considered  on  a  subsequent  occasion. 
The  strap  ends  of  the  pagan  period  have  mostly  been  found  in 
Kent,  where  as  we  have  seen  buckles  are  specially  numerous, 
and  PI.  lxxvi  gives  a  few,  No.  1  from  Ozengell,  Kent,  and  the 
rest,  No.  2,  from  the  King's  Field,  Faversham,  and  from 
Bifrons.  They  vary  in  length  from  about  i\  to  \\  in.  The 
butt  end  is  usually  split  and  the  end  of  the  strap  is  secured 
between  the  two  thicknesses  of  the  metal.  Another  form  of 
the  strap  end,  of  some  archaeological  importance,  will  be 
noticed  later  on  in  another  connection  (p.  558). 

A  final  word  must  be  said  about  an  interesting  little  adjunct 
to  the  buckle  illustrated  PI.  lxxv,  7  and  also  on  the  previous 
Plate  xxiv,  6  (p.  203).  This  is  the  so-called  '  shoe  shaped ' 
stud,  which  is  one  of  the  objects  that  are  as  common  on  the 
Gallic  side  of  the  Channel  as  on  ours.  They  are  supposed  to 
have  been  used  to  fasten  the  strap  or  belt  round  the  back  of 
the  buckle  ring  when  this  had  no  chape  attached  to  it,  the 
band  being  doubled  round  the  bar  at  the  back  of  the  ring, 
just  as  is  the  case  with  our  ordinary  leather  straps,  and  the  two 
thicknesses,  instead  of  being  sewn  together  by  the  cobbler, 
were  pierced  by  the  tang  underneath  the  shoe-shaped  surface 
of  the  stud  through  the  hole  in  which  a  pin  was  passed  to 
keep  all  firm.  At  Barrington,  Cambs,  a  buckle  seems  to  have 
been  found  with  part  of  a  band  adhering  to  it  still  pierced  by 
a  stud  of  the  kind,1  which  seems  to  certify  the  presumed 
arrangement.  An  interesting  little  exhibit  in  the  Cambridge 
Museum  is  shown  PI.  lxxv,  5.  It  is  a  bronze  buckle  from 
Royston  Heath,  Cambridgeshire,  and  still  has  adhering  to  it 
part  of  the  leathern  band  that  was  doubled  round  the  bar  at 
the  back  of  the  ring,  and  also  part  of  the  free  end  of  the  strap 

1  Cambridge  Antiquarian  Society's  Communications,  vol.  v,  No.  1 1 , 
pi.  11,  5.  M.  Boulanger,  Mobilier  Funeraire,  p.  77,  notices  two  other  similar 
discoveries. 


360  THE  CLASP 

passed  through  the  ring  and  fixed  by  the  penetration  of  it  by 
the  tongue  of  the  buckle.  Another  view  of  the  same  piece  has 
been  given  PI.  v,  12  (p.  81). 

Due  notice  should  be  taken  of  the  great  diversities  in  size 
among  the  buckles  and  their  adjuncts  that  have  now  been 
passed  in  review.  The  aperture  for  the  band  or  strap  in  Ger- 
manic buckles  generally  varies  in  width  between  the  extremes 
of  about  4  in.  and  less  than  \  in.,  and  though  Anglo-Saxon 
England  furnishes  none  of  the  very  large  ones  yet  the  range 
of  sizes  is  even  here  a  pretty  wide  one,  and  betokens  the  use 
of  the  buckle  in  connection  with  more  than  one  part  of  the 
clothing.  This  however  raises  at  once  the  rather  obscure 
question  of  the  clothing  of  our  forefathers  and  foremothers  of 
the  migration  period,  and  it  will  be  best  to  defer  any  discussion 
of  this  till  all  the  tomb  furniture  connected  with  the  wardrobe 
and  toilette  has  been  passed  in  review. 

Other  appliances  for  fastening  the  parts  of  clothing  used 
in  Anglo-Saxon  times  were  hooks  and  eyes  of  different  kinds, 
clasps,  and  pins.  A  simple  form  of  the  hook  and  eye  arrange- 
ment was  made  of  twisted  wire,  the  part  intended  to  be  sewn 
on  to  the  garment  being  coiled  round  in  a  spiral.  PI.  lxxvi,  5, 
shows  a  pair  from  Twyford,  Leicestershire,  in  Leicester 
Museum.  Other  such  objects  are  recorded  from  Market 
Overton,  Rutland ;  Kenninghall,  Norfolk  ;  Sleaford,  Lincoln- 
shire, and  Beeby,  Leicestershire,  see  Archaeologia^  lxii,  484. 
Spiral  wire  attachments  of  the  kind  occur  in  the  early  finds  in 
Nydam  Moss  in  Schleswig,  see  Engelhardt,  Denmark  in  the 
Early  Iron  Age,  Nydam,  pi.  v.  A  far  more  elaborate  and 
technically  very  interesting  set  is  that  figured  PI.  lxxvi,  4. 
It  is  one  of  two  clasps  found  about  19 10  at  Market  Overton, 
Rutland,  and  now  at  Tickencote  Hall  in  that  county.  It  will 
easily  be  seen  that  what  appear  on  the  face  as  round  discs  are 
merely  the  ends  of  the  spirally  coiled  wires  beaten  out  flat  in  a 
manner  that  betokens  good  metal  and  a  knowing  hammerer. 


LXXVII 

facing  p.  361 


CLASPS  OF  THE  LARGER  KIND 


4,  natural  size;  2,  5,  slightly  enlarged  ;   3,  enlarged  to  double  size;   1,  half  natural  size 


LARGE  BELT  CLASPS  361 

The  silver  wires  themselves  are  in  parts  worked  into  a  beading 
and  elsewhere  left  plain,  which  is  also  instructive  from  the 
technical  standpoint.  The  craftsman  must  have  had  a  steel 
tool  with  the  pattern  cut  in  intaglio  in  a  half  cylinder  and  have 
worked  this  round  and  round  the  wire  as  a  screw  plate  is 
worked  to  produce  the  thread  of  a  male  screw.  The  circles 
that  ornament  the  face  of  the  discs  seem  to  have  been  worked 
free-hand  for  they  are  not  concentric  and  not  always  complete. 
A  curious  clasp  in  the  Museum  at  Leicester,  PI.  lxxvi,  3,  was 
found  between  Twyford  and  Borough  Hill  in  the  county,  and 
consists  in  two  narrow  strips  of  silver,  about  6  in.  long,  one  of 
which  ends  in  a  hook  the  other  in  an  eye.  This  leads  us  on  to  the 
subject  of  the  clasp  proper  on  which  a  word  or  two  must  be  said. 
The  clasp  proper  appears  in  two  forms.  There  are  one  or 
two  examples  of  substantial  size  such  as  would  serve  for  the 
fastening  of  a  waistbelt,  but  the  vast  majority  of  the  specimens 
are  quite  small  and  evidently,  from  the  position  in  which  they 
have  been  found,  served  to  close  a  wristlet  or  a  sleeve  at  the 
wrist.  Save  in  a  few  cases  they  are  not  of  great  moment  as 
works  of  art,  but  are  exceedingly  important  from  the  point  of 
view  of  their  distribution,  and  in  this  aspect  they  must  receive 
due  attention.  PL  lxxvii,  i,  shows  a  large  ornate  cast  bronze 
clasp,  8  in.  long  over  all  and  3  in.  in  width,  and  evidently 
intended  for  the  belt.  An  animal  in  open  work  forms  the 
centre  of  each  square  plate,  and  through  some  blunder  in  pre- 
paring the  moulds  for  the  cast  one  of  the  creatures  is  standing 
on  his  head.  The  borders  of  the  square  plates  are  apparently 
treated  for  enamel.  The  object,  which  is  in  the  possession  of 
Lord  Grantley,  comes  from  the  Forman  collection  and  its 
provenance  is  unknown,  but  the  pierced  work  belongs  to  a 
type  well  known  in  the  north  of  France  where  it  is  reckoned 
as  Carolingian.1  It  is  quite  possible  that  the  clasp  is  an  \ 
imported  piece  though  the  blunder  in  the  casting  looks  more 

1  J.  Pilloy,   Les  Tlaques  Ajourees    Carolingiennes,   Paris,    1893,    and    Les 
Tlaques  Ajourees  des  Boris  de  la  Somme,  Paris,  1888. 


362  THE  CLASP 

like  one  of  our  native  artificers  trying  his  hand  at  an  unfamiliar 
kind  of  work.  Its  late  date  may  be  accepted  as  certain.  Of 
native  provenance,  though  not  certainly  a  clasp,  is  the  beautiful 
little  object  from  the  cemetery  at  Gilton,  Kent,  grave  41, 
already  figured  PL  ix,  6  (p.  103)  as  an  almost  unique  example  of 
definitely  floral  ornament  in  the  tomb  furniture,  and  as  a  piece 
of  comparatively  advanced  date.  It  is  given  here,  PL  lxxvii,  3 
on  an  enlarged  scale  as  it  is  an  object  of  rare  interest.  The 
actual  longest  dimension  is  about  1  in.  On  the  edge  of  the 
plate  near  the  quaint  little  animal's  head  two  pieces  of  the 
metal,  each  about  T3^  in.  wide,  have  been  broken  off  leaving 
between  them  about  -§-  in.  of  the  original  edge.  The  appear- 
ance is  best  explained  by  supposing  that  the  loop  side  of  a 
clasp  has  been  broken  off,  and  if  this  be  the  case  it  would  be 
another  example,  this  time  of  Kentish  provenance,  of  the 
'  plaque  ajouree '  of  a  somewhat  late  epoch.  Of  earlier  origin 
and  of  great  beauty  is  the  gilded  bronze  clasp  found  in  the 
extremely  rich  interment  within  the  Taplow  Barrow.  This  is 
one  of  a  pair,  and  from  the  size  and  shape  of  the  two  and  their 
position  in  the  grave  they  appear  to  have  fastened  the  belt. 
The  colour  plate,  PI.  B,  iv  (p.  353),  on  the  left,  gives  the  object 
as  it  appears  in  the  British  Museum  and  PL  lxxvii,  2,  shows 
the  ornament  nearly  of  the  natural  size.  The  heads  of  the 
creatures  on  the  loop  of  the  clasp  are  of  a  characteristic  type 
which  is  also  represented  on  the  exquisite  little  golden  buckle 
from  Faversham,  also  in  the  national  collection  illustrated  in 
its  natural  colour,  PL  B,  iv,  above  in  the  middle.  Dr.  Salin 
signalizes  this  head  as  characteristic  of  his  Style  11  and  would 
date  it  not  far  from  the  year  600  which  is  the  official  date 
given  for  the  Taplow  find.  It  will  be  observed,  as  according 
with  what  was  said  before  (p.  329  f.),  that  the  interlacing  motive 
<t  is  highly  developed  both  on  the  ring  and  in  the  triangular 
spaces  of  the  plates.     See  also  (p.  289). 

We  come  now  to  the  smaller  clasps  so  often  found  at  the 


LXXVIII 

facing  p.  363 


CLASPS  OF  THE  SMALLER  KIND 


All  approximately  natural  size 


SMALL  CLASPS  FOR  THE  WRIST  363 

wrists  of  skeletons.  These  occur  abundantly  in  the  eastern 
Midlands  in  the  counties  of  Lincolnshire,  Rutland,  Northants, 
Huntingdon,  Cambridge,  and  north-western  Suffolk  ;  and  have 
come  to  light  also  in  Norfolk,  Leicestershire,  the  north-east 
corner  of  Warwickshire,  Hunts,  and  probably  Bedfordshire, 
and  also  in  Yorkshire.  Two  clasps  from  Bifrons,  Kent,  and 
one  part  of  one  at  Lewes  from  Sussex  are  sporadic.  The 
clasps  vary  from  very  plain  examples  in  beaten  work  to 
specimens  cast,  chased,  and  gilded  in  the  best  style  of  the 
times.  PI.  lxxviii,  1  to  9,  and  PI.  lxxvii,  4,  5,  give  a  fair  idea 
of  the  different  kinds.  PI.  lxxviii,  1,  is  a  very  plain  one  from 
near  Welbourn,  Lincolnshire  ;  No.  2,  in  tinned  bronze,  i-f  in. 
high,  is  from  Holdenby,  Northants,  in  Northampton  Museum  ; 
No.  3  is  from  Rothley  Temple,  Leicestershire,  in  the  School 
Museum,  Rugby.  More  ornate  and  of  cast  bronze  is  the  pair 
from  Londesborough,  Yorks,  in  the  Museum  at  Hull,  if  in. 
broad,  PL  lxxviii,  4,  and  that  from  West  Stow  Heath,  Suffolk, 
at  Bury  St.  Edmunds,  No.  5.  These  are  all  about  1^  to  if  in. 
in  the  longest  dimension,  and  are  suitable  for  use  at  the  wrist. 
The  most  artistic  form  of  the  sleeve  clasp  of  cast  bronze 
is  one  that  is  found  in  places  as  far  apart  as  Lewes  in  Sussex 
and  Londesborough  in  the  East  Riding  of  Yorkshire.  PL 
lxxvii,  4,  5  ;  PL  lxxviii,  6  to  9,  illustrate  six  clasps  from  the 
regions  in  each  case  indicated.  PL  lxxviii,  9,  at  York  is  from 
Londesborough  ;  No.  7,  at  Normanton,  Rutland,  was  found 
at  North  Luffenham,  Rutland  ;  No.  6,  from  Mildenhall, 
Suffolk,  is  at  Bury  St.  Edmunds  ;  Lewes  Museum,;  Sussex, 
preserves  one  part  of  a  similar  clasp,  PL  lxxvii,  5,  from  Saxon- 
bury  just  outside  the  town  ;  and  finally  at  Bifrons  House  are 
the  clasp  PL  lxxviii,  8,  and  the  fine  example  PL  lxxvii,  4. 
This  measures  about  2  in.  in  the  longest  dimension,  the  others 
are  about  i|-  or  if  in.  It  is  also  the  best  in  execution  and 
preserves  in  their  most  definite  form  the  motives  of  ornament 
which  occur  regularly  in  all  the  other  examples  in  this  series. 
The  design  is  seen  most  clearly  when  the  clasp  is  turned  at 


364  THE  CLASP 

right  angles  to  its  usual  position  when  in  wear.  From  the 
centre  where  are  the  hook  and  the  loop  of  the  fastening  there 
branches  out  in  each  plate  a  sort  of  volute  in  the  eye  of  which 
may  be  discerned  some  of  the  '  disjecta  membra '  of  a  Ger- 
manic beast  of  the  last  half  of  VI.  Above,  outside  the  volutes, 
there  are  crouching  quadrupeds  similar  to  those  which  we  have 
seen  on  the  feet  of  the  square  headed  fibulae,  and  each  of  these 
is  springing  forward  towards  the  centre.  Those  at  the  top  as 
the  object  appears  on  the  plate  possess  hind  and  forelegs, 
eyebrows  that  look  at  first  sight  like  open  jaws,  eyes,  and 
muzzles  like  a  bird's  beak,  and  might  quite  well  date  the 
object  about  the  middle  of  VI.  The  Lewes  piece,  PI.  lxxvii,  5, 
has  the  same  features  not  quite  so  well  made  out. 

These  attractive  little  objects,  the  small  wrist  clasps,  are 
certainly  of  native  origin  for  the  type  does  not  occur  on  the 
Continent,  save  sporadically  in  Scandinavia,  and  though  some 
specimens  of  unusual  excellence  have  made  their  appearance  in 
the  south  of  England  the  habitat  of  the  type  seems  to  be  the 
Midlands,  especially  the  district  of  which  Cambridgeshire  is 
the  centre.  Here  we  may  assume  that  they  were  made,  and 
their  popularity  in  this  region  may  possibly  be  due  to  certain 
special  fashions  in  dress  affected  by  the  people  of  those  parts 
of  Britain.  The  position  in  which  so  many  of  the  clasps  have 
been  found,  especially  in  the  cemetery  at  Sleaford,  Lincoln- 
shire, shows  that  they  were  habitually  worn  at  the  wrist,  pre- 
sumably though  of  course  not  certainly  for  the  fastening  of 
sleeves.  Mr.  Thomas,  the  explorer  of  Sleaford,  seemed  to 
think  that  they  were  for  the  closing  of  wristlets  of  leather  or 
some  such  material,  but,  as  Mr.  Leeds  has  pointed  out,1  such 
appliques  if  used  on  leather  would  be  attached  by  rivets,  and 
no  signs  of  rivets  seem  to  have  appeared  ;  while  on  the  other 
hand  clasps  actually  exist,  in  the  Ashmolean  and  in  Mr.  S.  G. 
Fenton's  collection  in  London,  with  woven  fabric  still  adhering 
to  them,  even  with  the  marks  of  stitches  still  apparent. 
1  Northamptonshire  Natural  History  Society's  Journal,  vol.  xv,  Sept.  1909,  p.  93. 


LXXIX 

facing  p.  365 


CLASP  SUITES 


2,  natural  size ;   1,  §  natural  size 


ADJUNCTS  TO  CLASPS  365 

In  the  district  indicated,  not  only  are  the  known  examples 
numerous,  but  the  clasp  develops  forms  more  elaborate  though 
artistically  less  meritorious  than  the  specimens  just  illustrated 
from  Kent  and  Sussex.  The  example  PL  lxxix,  2,  from  the 
cemetery  at  Barrington,  Cambs,  now  in  the  Cambridge 
Museum,  exhibits  a  clasp  to  one  half  of  which  is  appended,  all 
in  the  same  piece,  a  triangular  projection  the  purpose  of  which 
appears  to  have  been  the  covering  of  the  part  slit  up  where  the 
sleeve  opens  to  let  the  hand  through.  The  back  view  of  the 
piece  on  the  left  proves  the  continuity  of  the  triangular  exten- 
sion with  the  clasp  proper.  The  existence  of  this  complete 
arrangement  explains  the  appearance  in  graves  in  other  ceme- 
teries of  these  ornate  triangular  pieces  apart  from  the  clasp. 
Such  objects  occur  in  this  district  as  at  North  Luffenham, 
Rutland,  PL  lxxix,  3.  Whether  these  pieces  were  in  most 
cases  separate  or  were  originally  united  to  the  actual  clasps  as 
in  the  instance  PL  lxxix,  2,  may  be  doubted,  but  the  appear- 
ance of  the  edges  of  those  that  can  be  examined  seems  to  show 
that  they  were  fashioned  apart.  The  crouching  beasts  on  the 
edges  of  the  Bifrons  clasp  PL  lxxvii,  4,  and  those  like  it, 
make  it  impossible  that  any  such  adjunct  was  cast  in  one  piece 
with  the  clasp  plates.  The  interesting  suite  from  Barrington, 
the  various  pieces  in  which  are  now  united  in  the  Cambridge 
Museum,  shown  PL  lxxix,  i,  gives  us  a  fine  late  VI  square 
headed  fibula,  6  in.  long,  of  the  English  type,  flanked  by  clasps 
of  the  volute  kind  already  illustrated,  above  which  in  separate 
pieces  are  the  triangular  extensions.  This  shows  incidentally 
that  the  cast  bronze  volute  clasps  were  used  for  the  wrist,  and 
were  not  as  might  be  surmised  in  the  case  of  the  large 
specimen  from  Bifrons,  PL  lxxvii,  4,  girdle  fastenings.  Ornate 
triangular  pieces  of  this  kind  might  also  be  parts  of  the 
mounting  of  wooden  pails  or  of  horns,  as  Pll.  lx,  i  ;  cxiii,  5 
(pp.  3 1 9,  464).  The  Taplow  Barrow  produced  a  large  number 
of  them.  The  occurrence  in  such  pieces  of  holes  along  the  sides, 
as  in  PL  lxxix,  3,  might  be  held  to  show  that  they  were  sewn 


366  THE  CLASP 

on  to  a  garment  and  used  with  clasps,  but  unfortunately  the 
triangular  bucket  mounts  might  also  have  rivet  holes  in  the 
same  places,  as  in  the  case  with  the  interesting  bucket  mounts 
at  Worcester  shown  PL  cxiii,  5,  6  (p.  464). 

The  pin  is  the  last  of  the  appliances  for  fastening  the  attire 
of  which  notice  needs  to  be  taken. 

Casting  a  general  glance  at  these  four  methods  of  dress 
attachment,  we  may  note  that  the  fibula  belongs  practically  to 
all  the  European  peoples  from  the  Early  Iron  Age  onwards, 
while  the  buckle  is  a  specifically  Teutonic  object.  The  range 
of  the  clasp  is  still  narrower  for  it  is  an  Anglo-Saxon  speciality 
only  appearing  sporadically  in  a  few  examples  on  the  Continent. 
It  does  not  even  possess  abroad  such  a  distinctive  name  as 
among  ourselves.  Every  one  knows  at  once  what  the  word 
1  clasp '  means,  but  the  German  '  Heftel '  and  '  Schliesse,'  the 
French  '  agrafe '  and  *  fermoir  '  are  used  more  vaguely.  It  is 
an  additional  proof  how  independent  our  Anglo-Saxon  work  is 
of  that  of  the  Franks  that  whereas  clasps  are  with  ourselves 
fully  in  evidence  they  take  so  small  a  place  in  inventories  of 
tomb  furniture  across  the  Channel  that  it  is  difficult  to  find 
any  reference  to  them  at  all.  There  is  no  mention  even  of 
the  object  in  the  comprehensive  works  on  Merovingian  art 
by  MM.  Boulanger  and  Barriere-Flavy,  and  on  the  38  plates 
devoted  by  the  latter  to  'Agrafes'  no  single  clasp  is  represented. 
M.  Pilloy1  appears  to  describe  clasps  as  found  at  Samson  in 
Belgium,  but  no  specimen  is  figured  on  the  plates  in  the  Re- 
port,2 though  something  of  the  kind  seems  to  be  mentioned  on 
p.  349.  Under  the  heading  '  Agrafes  de  Manteau  '  M.  Pilloy 
publishes  some  objects  with  hooks  in  the  first  volume  of 
his  Etudes,  pp.  243,  245,  but  there  is  no  complementary 
'  eye '  and  one  does  not  see  how  the  attachment  could  be 
effected.     The  clasp  is  not  recognized  at  Selzen  or  Reichenhall 

1  Etudes,  1,  103,  'agrafes  doubles  avec  crochet  d'attache.' 

2  Annales  de  la  Soctete  Arcbeologique  de  Namur,  vi,  345  f. 


RARITY  OF  CLASPS  ABROAD  367 

or  Gammertingen,  nor,  to  the  writer's  knowledge,  in  any  of 
the  Rhineland  and  Swabian  cemeteries,  though  occasionally 
what  passes  in  the  inventories  as  part  of  a  buckle  without  its 
pin  has  rather  the  appearance  of  the  loop  end  of  a  clasp. 
Further  east  in  Hungary  examples  are  found,  but  of  them 
Professor  Hampel  reports1  that  '  clasps  in  two  corresponding 
portions  are  among  the  greatest  rarities  in  the  tomb  furni- 
ture of  the  epoch.'  There  is  one  big  clasp  at  Budapest  with 
interesting  figure  subjects  and  Christian  emblems  upon  it  that 
is  a  *  unicum '  to  be  placed  beside  our  unique  Taplow  clasp, 
and  there  are  also  a  number  of  clasps  consisting  in  two  round 
discs  connected  with  a  hook  and  eye  arrangement,  but  there  is 
nothing  resembling  the  wrist  clasps  of  our  own  country.  In 
the  North  one  or  two  examples  are  figured  by  Engelhardt  on 
his  Thorsberg  plates  6  and  18,  but  they  do  not  occur  in 
Professor  Mestorf's  Urnenfriedhofe  in  Schleswig  Holstein  nor  in 
her  Vorgeschichtliche  Alterthumer  dealing  with  the  same  district, 
nor  again  in  J.  H.  Miiller's  Vor-  und  fruhgeschichtliche  Alter- 
thiimer  der  Provinz  Hannover,  Hannover,  1893.  In  the  earlier 
LaTene  period  the  object  was  represented,  but  not  in  forms  that 
in  any  way  look  towards  our  own.  We  may  therefore  fairly 
claim  the  clasp  especially  in  the  forms  already  illustrated  as  an 
essentially  English,  and  so  far  as  distribution  goes  a  specially 
mid-Anglian  product. 

The  pin  on  the  other  hand  is  only  Anglo-Saxon  in  a  very 
secondary  sense,  for  the  period  of  its  greatest  glory  is  that 
known  by  the  name  of  Hallstatt.  It  is  of  course  far  far  older 
and  goes  back  at  least  to  neolithic  times,  while  in  the  course 
of  its  history  it  gave  birth  as  we  have  seen  to  the  safety  pin 
fibula,  itself  in  turn  responsible  for  so  prolific  a  progeny.  At 
Hallstatt  we  find  the  pin  in  the  noblest  form  that  is  anywhere 
represented  by  extant  remains,  and  in  the  Museum  at  Vienna 
there  are  dress  pins  as  much  as  13  in.  long  that  were  supplied, 
like  the  modern  hat  pin  in  well-ordered  communities,  with 
1  Altertbiimer  in  Ungarn,  1,  337. 


368  THE  PIN 

point  protectors.1  That  Greek  ladies  used  formidable  pins  to 
attach  their  Dorian  tunics  on  the  shoulders  is  proved  both  by 
the  evidence  of  literature  and  of  that  of  vase  paintings,  but  no 
actual  specimens  seem  to  be  known. 

In  the  Germanic  period  pins  are  found  in  women's  graves 
with  reasonable  frequency,  but  opinions  have  been  divided  as 
to  whether  they  were  used  for  dress  fastenings  or  as  part  of 
the  coiffure.  They  have  been  discovered  in  positions  which 
seemed  to  indicate  a  use  for  both  purposes,  and  M.  van 
Bastelaer  summarizes  the  evidence  as  follows : — '  La  plupart 
des  auteurs  regardent  ces  petits  objets  comme  epingles  a 
cheveux,  d'autres  comme  epingles  a  attacher  les  vetements. 
Nous  pensons  que  ces  deux  usages  d'occasion  etaient  admis. 
Nous  l'avons  nous-memes  constate  dans  nos  fouilles,  ayant 
trouve  le  style  parfois  sur  la  poitrine  et  parfois  sous  la  nuque 
de  la  morte.'2  M.  Pilloy  was  for  a  time  uncertain,  but  ex- 
pressed his  conviction  in  the  first  volume  of  his  Etudes ',  p.  112, 
that  the  pins  were  generally  used  to  fasten  a  small  wrap  or 
fichu  round  the  shoulders,  and  not  in  the  coiffure.  The 
position  of  the  pin  in  the  grave,  when  this  comes  to  be  opened, 
would  be  much  the  same  whether  it  had  been  used  in  the  hair 
or  to  fasten  a  part  of  the  dress  under  the  chin,  and  in  any  case 
position  in  the  grave  like  every  other  piece  of  archaeological 
evidence  has  to  be  received  in  a  critical  spirit. 

It  has  been  usual  for  our  Anglo-Saxon  antiquaries  to 
assume  that  the  pins  found  in  our  graves  were  for  the  hair, 
and  in  the  case  of  some  of  them  such  employment  can  almost 
be  demonstrated  (p.  387).  It  must  be  remembered  at  the  same 
time  that  certain  pins  of  a  plain  kind  were  apparently  employed 
to  keep  together  the  edges  of  the  winding  sheet  in  which  a  body 
was  wrapped  for  burial,3  and  this  renders  plausible  the  suppo- 

1  Von  Sacken,  Das  Grabfeld  von  Hallstatt,  Wien,  1868,  pi.  xv,  xvi,  shows 
some  specimens. 

2  Le  Cimeture  franc  de  Fontaine-Valmont,  1895,  p.  34. 

3  e.g.  at  Harnham  Hill,  Wilts. 


LXXX 

facing  p.  369 


LARGE  PINS  FOR  DRESS  OR  HAIR 


All  somewhat  reduced,  save  6,  which  is  enlarged 


PINS  FOR  DRESS  AND  HAIR  '  369 

sition  of  a  similar  use  in  the  case  of  the  garments  of  the  living. 
In  a  report  by  Charles  Roach  Smith  on  the  discoveries  at 
Ozengell  in  Kent  quoted  on  a  previous  page  (p.  190),  it  is 
said  that  the  dress  of  a  female  f  appeared  to  have  been  fastened 
in  front  by  a  long  metal  pin,'  and  of  course  for  *  dress '  here 
might  be  read  '  winding  sheet.'  As  would  follow  naturally 
from  the  history  of  the  pin,  the  object  when  found  in  Anglo- 
Saxon  graves  exhibits  sometimes  elements  of  older  date. 
There  was  nothing  of  which  the  Hallstatt  people  were  more 
enamoured  than  what  the  Germans  call  c  Klapperschmuck,' 
consisting  in  the  attachment  to  the  heads  of  pins  or  to  brooches 
of  movable  metal  plates  that  jingled  when  the  wearer  moved. 
The  more  perfect  was  the  freedom  of  the  vibration  the  better 
would  be  the  effect,  and  a  pin  equipped  in  this  fashion  would 
fulfil  its  function  more  pleasingly  when  projecting  from  the 
coiffure  than  when  in  contact  with  the  folds  of  drapery. 
Hence  the  pin  with  '  Klapperschmuck  '  found  in  the  cemetery 
at  Leagrave  in  Bedfordshire,  PI.  lxxx,  2,  would  suggest  a  use 
in  the  hair,  though  in  the  British  Museum  it  is  labelled  '  cloak 
pin.'  There  are  parallels  to  the  Leagrave  pin  and  these  have 
mostly  been  found  under  conditions  that  suggest  an  early  date. 
At  Brighthampton,  Oxfordshire,  in  grave  17,  a  bronze  pin 
of  the  kind  was  found  '  on  the  breast '  of  a  skeleton,  though 
J.  Y.  Akerman  who  reported  on  the  cemetery  calls  it  a  hair 
pin.1  One  was  also  discovered  at  Searby,  Lincolnshire,  in 
company  with  a  round  headed  fibula  of  the  radiating  sub-type 
ending  with  a  horse's  head,  the  date  of  which  may  be  reckoned 
the  last  half  of  V.  An  example  from  Canterbury  found  in  the 
city  near  the  so-called  Watling  Street  is  probably  Romano- 
British.  In  northern  France  a  Franco-Roman  tomb  of  about 
400  a.d.  noticed  later  on  (p.  552  f.)  contained  a  pin  of  the 
kind. 

Other  pins  with   movable   heads   of  a   different  sort  are 
illustrated  from  the  Museum  at  Northampton,  PI.   lxxx,   3. 

1  Archaeologia,  xxxvn,  393. 

hi  2  a 


370  THE  PIN 

They  were  found  at  Brixworth,  Northants,  and  as  the  right 
hand  one  of  the  two,  5  in.  long,  has  late  interlacing  ornament 
upon  the  hinged  plate  at  the  head  it  may  conceivably  have 
been  worn  by  a  Brixworth  lady  who  attended  service  in  the 
still  existing  church  built  about  680  a.d.1  These  hinged  pin 
heads  are  Celtic  rather  than  Germanic  in  character,  and  the 
arrangement  and  the  ornamentation  of  this  piece  are  reminis- 
cent of  an  Irish  pin  figured  on  p.  36  of  Mr.  George  Coffey's 
Guide  to  the  Celtic  Antiquities  in  the  National  Museum,  Dublin. 
No.  3,  to  the  left,  also  with  a  movable  ring  hinged  to  the 
head,  is  d\  in.  long.  No.  4,  3^  in.  long,  also  from  Brixworth, 
has  a  fixed  head  and  is  more  of  the  ordinary  Germanic  type. 
The  prototypes  of  pins  of  the  kind  are  not  Celtic  but  Roman, 
and  in  many  cases  it  is  hardly  possible  to  tell  a  Roman  sur- 
vival from  a  Teutonic  copy.  For  example  there  is  a  pin  in 
the  Museum  at  Canterbury  of  which  the  head  represents  a 
hand  holding  a  small  incrusted  stone,  PI.  lxxx,  5.  That 
this  is  Roman  seems  indicated  by  the  fact  that  a  similar  piece 
in  the  Museum  at  Basel  was  found  on  a  Roman  site  at  Kaiser 
Augst.  At  Leagrave,  Beds,  there  was  found  what  is  almost 
certainly  a  Roman  stylus,  PI.  lxxix,  4,  and  this  introduces  the 
question  whether  Roman  styli  for  writing  were  commandeered 
by  the  Teutonic  ladies  to  serve  as  hair  pins.  There  is  no 
reason  in  the  nature  of  things  why  this  should  not  have  taken 
place  and  the  older  archaeologists  accepted  it  as  an  article  of 
faith.  It  has  more  recently  been  questioned,  and  M.  Pilloy, 
in  commenting  on  the  so-called  '  styliform '  pins  common  in 
northern  France 2  concludes  that  the  flat  spatula-like  termina- 
tion of  these  hair  pins  was  not  the  wax-smoother  of  a  stylus 
but  an  appliance  for  parting  the  hair  and  taking  up  small 
quantities  of  pomade.  In  his  chronological  arrangement  of 
the   items   of  Frankish   tomb   furniture  he  makes  small  pins 

1  The  Arts  in  Early  England,  11,  246  f. 

2  Memoires  de  la  Societe  Acad'emique  des  Sciences,  etc.,  de  St.  Shientin,  4me 
Sdrie,  Tom.  vi,  p.  467. 


LXXXI 

facing  p.  371 


SMALL  PINS,  ETC.,  AND  GERMANIC  COSTUME 


1,  5,  6,  natural  size ;  2,  3,  somewhat  reduced  j  4,  enlarged  nearly  twice 


PINS  AND  PIN  SUITES  371 

early  and  relegates  the  longer  ones  to  the  later  Merovingian 
or  the  Carolingian  epoch. 

The  most  purely  Germanic  pins  are  those  which  terminate 
in  the  heads  of  model  axes  of  the  specially  Teutonic  type, 
specimens  of  which  from  Belgium  were  given  on  one  of  the 
plates  illustrating  the  forms  of  axe  heads  PI.  xxx,  5  (p.  233). 
Anglo-Saxon  examples  do  not  seem  to  be  known.  One  of 
these  Belgian  pins  has  a  cross  on  the  head  and  this  can  be 
paralleled  in  the  bronze  pin  found  on  Breach  Down  in  Kent 
and  figured  PI.  x,  5  (p.  11 5). 

The  cemeteries  of  the  south  coast  have  yielded  up  some 
very  handsome  pins  brought  together  on  PI.  lxxx.  No.  i 
figures  a  set  from  the  King's  Field,  Faversham,  in  the  British 
Museum,  where  the  bird-headed  examples  are  reminiscent  of 
finds  in  the  Frankish  cemeteries.  The  pin  with  garnet  inlays 
on  the  head  and  with  a  broken  point  is  in  its  present  condition 
64  in.  long.  The  complete  one  measures  7^  in.  Seven  in.  is 
the  length  of  a  very  handsome  gilt  bronze  pin  from  Alfriston 
in  the  Lewes  Museum.  PI.  lxxx,  6,  shows  the  head  of  it  on 
an  enlarged  scale,  and  it  will  be  seen  that  it  is  moulded  and 
faceted  in  a  very  workmanlike  fashion.  This  method  of 
finishing  bronze  is  an  inheritance  from  Rome,  though  there  is 
no  reason  to  believe  that  all  objects  which  show  this  treatment 
are  of  specially  early  date.  The  Alfriston  cemetery  dates  in 
the  main  from  the  middle  and  last  half  of  VI.  A  pin  strikingly 
similar  to  this  was  found  in  the  High  Down  cemetery,  Sussex. 

Some  pins  of  a  smaller  kind  are  illustrated  PI.  lxxxi. 
Some  have  rings  in  the  head  and  others  were  set  there  with 
garnets  or  other  stones.  Two  specimens  from  Kent,  5,  6,  less 
than  2  in.  long,  will  serve  as  examples.  Of  exceptional 
delicacy  and  charm  is  the  suite  figured  PI.  lxxxi,  2.  The 
objects  were  found  in  1840  near  the  neck  of  a  skeleton  buried, 
as  a  primary  interment,  in  a  barrow  on  Roundway  \Down, 
Wilts,  and  consisted  in  the  parts  of  a  necklet  with  jewels  and 
pastes  set  in  gold,   No.  3,  and  in  the  two  golden  pins  with 


372  COSTUME 

jewelled  heads  united  by  a  chain,  No.  2.  The  chain  ends  in 
two  animals'  heads,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  chain  appears  a 
roundel  of  dark  vitrified  paste  set  in  gold  with  a  cross  figured 
on  it  in  step-pattern  lines.  No.  4  shows  it  in  front  and  back 
view  of  double  size.  It  will  be  referred  to  later  on  (p.  425). 
The  whole  belongs  to  a  small  class  of  finds  of  much  interest 
which  will  be  noticed  subsequently  (p.  424  f.).  Here  we  are 
only  concerned  with  the  pins  which  are  i-|  in.  long  and 
connected  by  about  5  in.  of  chain.  Another  golden  pin  suite 
is  shown  PL  lxxxi,  i,  and  comes  from  Little  Hampton, 
Worcestershire.  In  the  middle  is  a  disc  of  gold  set  in  the 
centre  with  a  flat  stone  and  from  this  a  pendant  of  some  kind 
was  hung.  The  chain  on  each  side  is  composed  of  straight 
pieces  nearly  an  inch  in  length,  covered  with  a  sort  of  web  of 
wire  work,  alternating  with  debased  horses'  heads  hinged  so 
that  the  chain  may  bend  in  two  directions.  Pins  nearly  2  in. 
long,  one  of  which  remains,  were  hinged  at  the  ends  of  the 
chain,  which  may  of  course  have  been  longer  by  other  links 
now  lost.     It  is  actually  about  £>\  in.  long. 

A  very  fine  jewelled  head  of  a  pin,  if  that  be  really  its 
character,  was  found  at  Forest  Gate  in  Essex  and  is  now  in 
the  Ashmolean.  It  will  be  noticed  later  on  (p.  538)  in  con- 
nection with  inlaid  jewellery  of  the  Kentish  type  of  which  it 
is  a  sumptuous  example. 

The  conclusion  of  this  review  of  the  different  forms  of 
dress  fastenings  in  Anglo-Saxon  tomb  furniture  is  a  fitting 
opportunity  for  a  word  or  two  on  the  dress  of  the  period  as 
worn  by  the  first  settlers  in  Teutonic  England,  though  it  must 
be  admitted  that  in  the  words  of  a  recent  writer  on  the  subject 
'  what  the  actual  clothes  were  which  the  Anglo-Saxons  wore 
during  the  pagan  period  is  a  matter  upon  which  not  much 
reliable  evidence  is  available.' x  On  this  subject  of  Germanic 
costume  something  was  said  in  the  writer's  previous  work 
1  George  Clinch,  English  Costume,  Lond.,  1909,  p.  18. 


SOURCES  OF  KNOWLEDGE  OF  COSTUME       373 

already  referred  to,  and  it  will  be  sufficient  here  to  summarize 
briefly  the  main  points  of  importance  without  adding  unduly 
to  the  already  large  number  of  our  illustrations. 

Information  may  be  sought  from  monumental  and  from 
literary  sources.  The  former  include  (1)  tombstones  of 
Roman  soldiers  represented  as  victorious  over  barbarian  foe- 
men  ;  (2)  the  columns  of  Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus  and  of 
Trajan  at  Rome  and  the  reliefs  at  Bucharest  from  the  monu- 
ment at  Adamklissi  in  the  Dobruja,  where  are  shown  incidents 
of  the  wars  between  the  Romans  and  their  northern  neighbours; 
(3)  some  consular  diptychs,  the  most  important  of  which  is 
that  at  Halberstadt,  and  the  great  cameos  of  the  early  imperial 
epoch  at  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale,  Paris,  and  at  Vienna,  in 
which  groups  of  Germanic  captives  are  shown  in  the  lower 
compartment  and  in  the  exergue  ;  while  (4)  for  our  own 
country  there  must  be  added  the  figures  carved  on  the  so-called 
'  Franks  Casket '  in  the  British  Museum,  almost  certainly  a 
Northumbrian  work  of  VII.  The  representations  in  the 
illuminated  manuscripts  are  all  too  late  to  be  of  absolute 
authority  for  the  migration  epoch,  but  are  of  course  of  first 
rate  value  for  their  own  times  and  have  also  retrospective 
worth.  Literary  notices  begin  with  Caesar  and  Tacitus,  and 
later  historians  of  the  imperial  age  such  as  Ammianus 
Marcellinus  supply  incidental  information.  The  Byzantine 
historians  of  the  later  period  of  the  migrations,  Procopius, 
Agathias,  etc.,  are  useful,  and  something  is  to  be  gleaned  from 
the  annalists  of  the  different  Teutonic  peoples,  Jornandes, 
Gregory  of  Tours,  Paulus  Diaconus,  Bede,  and  of  course 
from  the  older  heroic  lays  such  as  Beowulf. 

The  most  satisfactory  general  idea  of  the  dress  which  we 
obtain  is  derived  from  descriptions  we  possess  of  the  attire  of 
Charles  the  Great,  who  made  it  a  matter  of  patriotic  pride  to 
adhere  to  the  traditional  Frankish  costume.  At  Aachen  or 
Ingelheim,  as  we  learn  from  Einhard,1  Charles^clothed  his 
1  Mon.  Germ.  Hist.,  Script.,  11,  455. 


374  COSTUME 

magnificent  frame  in  linen  combinations  over  which  came  hose 
or  trews  and  a  woollen  jerkin  trimmed  with  silk.  The  shoes 
which  were  buckled  over  the  feet  had  attached  to  them  bands 
three  ells  in  length,  that  were  wound  round  the  leg  crossing 
at  front  and  at  back  as  far  as  the  knee,  where  they  were  as  we 
know  from  other  evidence  fastened  with  small  buckles.  To 
protect  the  upper  part  of  the  body  from  the  cold  Charles  wore 
a  garment  that  can  be  traced  back  as  one  of  the  most  primitive 
articles  of  vesture.  This  was  a  sort  of  cape  or  scapular  of  fur 
that  shielded  the  front  and  back  of  the  body  as  far  as  the 
girdle.  It  is  called  in  Caesar  and  other  writers  *  rheno,'  and 
one  of  these  tells  us  that  its  name  was  derived  from  that  of  an 
animal — obviously  the  reindeer.  Charles's  c  rheno  '  was  how- 
ever of  otter  or  sable.  Finally,  a  sea-green  mantle  clasped  on 
the  shoulder  completed  the  attire,  and  a  sword  was  always 
worn  in  the  belt  wherewith  the  tunic  was  girded.  Pictorial 
representations  of  a  costume  of  the  kind  agreeing  more  or  less 
closely  are  found  in  Carolingian  MSS.,  from  which  PL  lxxxii, 
i,  3,  are  taken.  No.  3  is  a  figure  of  Charles  the  Bald,  grand- 
son of  the  great  Charles,  and  No.  1  is  an  officer  of  his  court. 
They  come  from  the  sumptuous  Bible,  Bibl.  Nat.,  Lat.  1, 
written  for  Charles  the  Bald.  No.  2  on  the  same  plate  is  a 
representation,  made  up  with  due  reference  to  evidence,  of  a 
typical  Frankish  warrior  of  the  actual  migration  epoch.  The 
photograph  is  from  the  statue  issued  by  the  Central  Germanic 
Museum  at  Mainz.  The  last  represents  of  course  war  costume 
the  other  two  the  vesture  of  peace,  and  in  them  no  weapon  is 
shown,  though  Charles  the  Great  always  carried  a  sword. 

The  elements  of  this  costume  can  be  traced  much  further 
back.  Its  chief  constituents,  hosen,  tunic,  and  mantle,  are 
mentioned  and  represented  in  the  earliest  documents  but  not 
as  all  worn  together.  Tacitus  expressly  signalizes  the  cloak, 
'  sagum,'  and  speaks  of  the  rich  as  wearing  a  close  fitting 
vesture  which  showed  the  form  of  the  limbs,  by  which  we  may 
understand  the  trews  or  hosen.     The  women,  he  says,  dressed 


LXXXII 


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*•. 


LXXXIII 

facing  p.  375 


TEUTONIC  COSTUME  IN  SCULPTURE 


Alljrom  Continental  monuments 


DRESS  ON  ANTIQUE  MONUMENTS  375 

like  the  men,  and  he  refers  in  their  case  to  linen  tunics 
trimmed  with  purple,  which  had  no  sleeves  and  left  the  arms, 
shoulders,  and  upper  part  of  the  bosom  bare.1  The  early 
sculptured  monuments  convey  the  same  impression.  On  the 
tombstones  the  fallen  German  wears  sometimes  the  cloak  and 
nothing  else  and  sometimes  only  the  trews.2  A  bronze 
statuette  of  a  kneeling  German  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale, 
Paris,3  is  clad  in  trews  and  a  cloak,  and  on  the  Antonine 
column  a  Roman  is  fighting  a  barbarian  equipped  in  the  same 
fashion.*  At  a  much  later  date  in  VI  Agathias  describes  the 
foot-soldiers  of  the  Frankish-Alamannic  host  that  Butelin  led 
into  Italy  in  553  as  dressed  only  in  the  trews,  covering  the 
loins  and  lower  limbs.  On  the  reliefs  of  the  Antonine 
column  the  tunic  is  also  much  in  evidence  both  on  male  and 
on  female  figures  and  is  represented  often  as  sleeveless, 
PI.  lxxxiii,  4,  and  as  worn  under  a  mantle  quite  in  classical 
fashion,  No.  3.  It  also  appears  on  the  figures  of  both  sexes 
with  sleeves,  Nos.  3,  5,  and  women  draw  the  cloak  over  their 
heads  like  a  veil,  also  in  classical  guise,  No.  5.  One  may 
doubt  indeed  whether  the  costumes  in  these  reliefs  are  not 
entirely  Romanized.  There  is  a  more  genuine  look  of  barbaric 
character  in  the  dresses  worn  by  the  Germanic  captives  in  the 
reliefs  on  the  diptych  of  Halberstadt,  figured  here  PI.  lxxxiii, 
I,  2,  though  it  is  not  possible  to  tell  which  particular  sec- 
tion of  the  Teutonic  peoples  is  represented.  Most  unfor- 
tunately the  surface  of  the  ivory  reliefs  is  much  worn  and 
invaluable  details  have  in  this  way  been  lost.  The  following 
description  is  based  on  casts  from  the  original.  On  the  upper 
relief,  No.  1 ,  we  have  on  the  left  a  bearded  figure  with  a  short 
tunic  reaching  half  way  down  the  thigh,  and  apparently,  from 

1  De  Mot:  Germ.,  xvn.      This  thoroughly  classical  attire  is  illustrated 
from  the  Antonine  column  on  PI.  lxxxiii,  4.. 

2  Lindenschmit,  Tracbt  und  Bewaffnung  des  Romischen  Heeres,  Taf.  vn,  vm. 

3  Figured  in  Arts  and  Crafts,  etc.,  plate  in. 

4  Petersen,  etc.,  Die  Marcus-Saule,  etc.,  Miinchen,  1896,  pi.  86a. 


376  COSTUME 

lines  above  the  ankles  of  the  two  legs,  with  tight  fitting 
hosen  (?).  The  lady  next  him,  with  her  hair  drawn  up  in  a  knot 
on  the  top  of  the  head,  like  the  second  female  in  the  relief 
below,  wears  a  sleeveless  tunic  with  very  elaborate  ornamental 
work  bordering  it,  and  with  a  distinctly  visible  girdle.  The 
mother  nursing  her  child  to  the  right  has  a  tunic  without 
sleeves  and  unadorned,  a  mantle  round  the  lower  limbs  and 
hair  flowing  from  under  a  fillet  in  ample  locks  on  to  both 
shoulders,  while  the  last  figure  is  the  most  remarkable  of  all. 
He  is  a  bearded  man  with  something  like  a  Phrygian  cap  on 
his  head,  something  over  his  shoulders  that  suggests  a  fur 
cape  like  Charles's  'rheno,'  a  short  tunic,  and  on  the  legs 
elaborate  hosen  with  ornament  down  the  front  of  them  that 
looks  like  rows  of  buttons.  The  bearded  male  figure  with 
short  hair  in  No.  2,  the  undermost  of  the  two  reliefs,  to  the 
left  with  his  hands  tied  behind  his  back  wears  only  the  trews  ; 
the  woman  next  him  with  the  child  has  a  sleeveless  tunic  with 
very  widely  open  armholes,  hair  flowing  down  over  the 
shoulders  and  bound  round  the  head  by  a  fillet,  and  a  cloak 
apparently  thrown  over  the  right  shoulder  towards  the  back  ; 
her  companion  beside  her  wears  a  similar  tunic  and  has  the 
lower  part  of  the  body  enveloped  in  an  ample  wrap,  while  the 
hair  seems  to  be  drawn  up  into  a  knot  at  the  top  of  the  head  ; 
finally,  the  male  figure  towards  whom  she  turns  seems  to  be 
dressed  only  in  a  short  tunic  reaching  half  way  down  the  thigh 
and  open  in  front  as  far  as  the  waist,  the  V  shaped  aperture 
being  bordered  with  what  looks  like  a  band  of  embroidery. 

The  arms  introduced  embrace  round  shields  that  are  Teu- 
tonic, but  also  trapezoidal  ones  which  are  of  Roman  fashion. 
There  is  a  quiver  of  arrows,  and  lastly  a  sword  in  its  sheath 
that  bears  a  most  striking  resemblance  to  the  scramasax.  It 
has  an  abnormally  long  hilt  without  any  marked  pommel  and 
ends  square  below  like  the  scabbard  of  Childeric's  cutlass  as 
restored  by  Lindenschmit  and  Pilloy.1 

1  Etudes,  in,  pi.  i. 


COSTUME  ON  THE  FRANKS  CASKET  377 

A  passage  in  Paulus  Diaconus  cannot  be  passed  over.1  In 
describing  some  early  Lombard  wall  paintings  at  Monza  of  about 
the  year  600  he  says  of  the  personages  therein  portrayed  that 
they  wore  ample  robes  mostly  of  linen,  as  did  also  the  Anglo- 
Saxons,  bordered  with  broad  stripes  of  other  colours.  The  last 
figure  in  PI.  lxxxiii,  2,  and  the  first  and  second  in  No.  1, 
illustrate  this  last  remark.  The  Lombard  shoes  were  open 
over  the  instep  almost  as  far  down  as  the  great  toe  and  were 
laced  up  with  leathern  thongs.  The  '  cross  gartering '  on  the 
legs  with  bands  three  ells  long  is  specially  noted  by  the  Monk 
of  St.  Gall  in  his  account  of  the  dress  of  Charles  the  Great,2 
and  is  seen  on  the  figure  of  Charles  the  Bald  PL  lxxxii,  3. 
The  king  is  apparently  not  wearing  shoes  for  the  toes  seem  to 
be  visible,  but  the  figure  PL  lxxxii,  i,  has  what  resemble 
moccasins  fitting  tightly  to  the  foot  and  drawn  up  over  the 
ankles  half  way  to  the  knee. 

About  midway  in  point  of  time  between  the  representations 
on  the  diptych  of  Halberstadt  and  those  in  the  Bible  of  Charles 
the  Bald  may  be  placed  the  carvings  on  the  Franks  Casket 
already  mentioned  (p.  205),  a  work  of  native  Anglo-Saxon  art 
dated  by  runologists  about  650  to  700  a.d.3  The  monument 
as  a  whole  will  be  discussed  in  a  later  volume  in  connection 
with  the  carved  stones,  and  here  it  is  enough  to  say  that  it 
is  a  casket  of  whalebone,  about  9  in.  in  length  by  7^-  in 
breadth  with  a  height  of  about  5  in.,  and  is  covered  with 
carvings  of  figure  subjects  drawn  from  historical,  biblical, 
and  legendary  sources  and  elucidated  by  runic  inscriptions. 
PL  lxxxi,  7  to  10,  show  one  or  two  characteristic  figures.  No.  7 
is  a  warrior  bareheaded  armed  with  sword  and  round  shield 
and  clad  in  a  sleeved  tunic  girded  in  at  the  waist  and  falling  in 
skirt-like  folds  to  the  knee.  Under  it  are  seen  rather  ample 
leggings  reaching  to  the  ankle.     Between  him  and  the  figure 

1  Hist.  Gentis  Langobardorum,  iv,  22.     2  Mon.  Germ.  Hist.,  Script.,  11,  747. 
3  This  date  is  given  with  all  due  reservation,  and  must  be  discussed  in 
its  place. 


378  COSTUME 

in  front  similarly  attired  but  with  close  fitting  hosen  or  bare 
legs  is  a  warrior  falling  backwards  who  wears  a  coat  of  mail. 
No.  9,  one  of  the  three  Magi,  has  a  tunic,  the  ample  leggings, 
and  a  cloak,  the  '  sagum '  of  Tacitus.  A  cloak  of  voluminous 
dimensions  enwrapping  the  whole  figure  is  worn  by  No.  8. 
The  female  figure,  No.  io,  from  the  story  of  the  smith  Weland, 
is  also  clad  in  a  voluminous  mantle  drawn  up  over  the  head 
like  a  hood,  and  carries  in  her  hand  a  bag. 

With  regard  to  the  coiffure,  for  men  as  well  as  women  to 
wear  the  hair  long  was  a  common  tradition  among  the  Teutonic 
tribes,  and  many  Roman  tombstones  show  it,  but  on  the 
Antonine  column  it  is  generally  represented  as  short,  though 
wild  and  tumbled.  When  the  Alamanni  charge  the  troops  of 
Julian  in  the  battle  by  Strassburg  their  flowing  hair  bristles 
with  eagerness.1  At  a  later  date  extreme  length  of  locks  on 
the  male  head  became  a  speciality  of  the  royal  race  of  the  Salian 
Franks,  the  Merwings,  but  the  free  Teuton  in  general  did  not 
abandon  his  ample  locks  in  favour  of  the  short-clipped  hair  of 
the  classical  people,  and  he  wore  generally  also  the  unclassical 
moustache.  The  Anglo-Saxons  wore  the  hair  long  down  to 
the  Conquest  as  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  some  of  them 
thought  that  the  closely  cropped  heads  of  the  Norman  invaders 
were  those  of  priests. 

In  the  case  of  women  the  Halberstadt  reliefs  show  two 
distinct  arrangements,  (i)  flowing  locks  with  a  fillet  and  (2)  a 
top  knot,  while  the  Antonine  column  and  the  Franks  Casket 
supply  examples  of  the  mantle  drawn  over  the  head  like  a  veil. 
Lindenschmit 2  brings  forward  evidence  that  the  loose  hair 
betokened  the  virgin  while  married  women  had  theirs  bound 
up.  It  is  rather  against  this  that  the  two  women  engaged  with 
children  on  the  Halberstadt  reliefs  are  exactly  those  that  have 
the  long  tresses.  Both  maidens  and  matrons  however  wore 
the  fillet  or  diadem,  and  Lindenschmit  quotes  numerous 
references  to  this  under  the  names  '  vitta,'  '  corona '  or  '  dia- 
1  Am.  Marc,  xvi,  xii,  36.  2  Handbucb,  383  f. 


THE  TREWS  379 

dema.'  It  was  sometimes  of  gold  set  with  gems  and  in  this 
case  would  be  of  metal,  but  it  might  consist  also  in  a  band  of 
coloured  fabric ;  purple  is  mentioned  by  Angilbert  in  his 
verses  on  the  brave  show  made  by  the  consort  and  daughters 
of  Charles  the  Great,  a'nd  this  might  be  embroidered  with 
gold. 

For  the  present  purpose  these  notices  and  illustrations 
of  dress  are  only  of  importance  in  connection  with  tomb 
furniture.  The  trews  have  historical  significance.  Like 
sleeves  they  are  distinctly  non-classical  and  barbaric.  The 
outland  slave  maiden  who  stands  by  her  mistress  on  the 
Athenian  tomb  reliefs  is  figured  with  sleeves,  and  in  Greek 
sculpture  Persians  and  Scythians  are  always  shown  wearing 
the  loose  trousers  called  among  the  former  avafp)pi§€<;.  In 
Roman  sculpture  Gauls  and  Germans  are  similarly  dressed. 
Now  there  can  be  little  question  that  it  is  the  same  garment 
in  the  west  as  in  the  east  and  that  it  was  adopted  by  the 
peoples  of  central  and  northern  Europe  from  those  of  southern 
Russia  and  Iranian  lands.  This  is  a  striking  proof  of  the 
fact  which  Mr.  Dalton  makes  clear  in  his  Treasure  of  the  Oxus x 
that  the  whole  region  of  Europe  north  of  the  Carpathians  and 
the  ranges  that  extend  these  to  the  north-west  formed  a  single 
archaeological  province,  through  which  fashions  in  art  as  well 
as  in  costume,  for  instance  the  setting  of  garnets  in  gold, 
might  be  freely  diffused  in  complete  independence  of  the 
Mediterranean  peoples.  For  the  form  of  the  garment  we  do 
not  depend  merely  on  the  illustrations,  for  specimens  of  it 
actually  exist  in  the  Museum  at  Kiel,  and  are  among  the  most 
interesting  of  the  finds  in  the  Thorsberg  Moss  of  about  IV 
a.d.  They  are  figured  in  Engelhardt's  Denmark  in  the  Early 
Iron  Age  and  in  many  a  book  besides.  It  is  to  be  noted  that 
loops  about  the  waist  part,  as  in  our  cricketing  trousers,  show 
that  the  garment  was  kept  in  place  by  a  girdle,  and  this  bears 
upon  the  importance  of  the  belt  in  Germanic  dress  as  com- 

1   London,  1 905. 


380  COSTUME 

pared  with  the  dress  of  the  classical  peoples,  among  whom  the 
zone  had  no  such  constructive  part  to  play.  It  should  be 
added,  as  one  more  proof  of  that  reciprocal  influence  between 
Roman  and  Teuton  which  we  see  existing  in  customs  as  well 
as  in  matters  of  craftsmanship,  that  the  Romans  in  the  migra- 
tion period  came  themselves  to  adopt  this  barbaric  fashion  in 
attire,  and  Roman  soldiers  on  the  Antonine  column,  as  for 
example  PL  lxxxiii,  4,  are  seen  so  dressed.  The  more  con- 
servative people  however  looked  askance  at  the  innovation,  and 
in  the  Theodosian  Code  there  is  a  provision  that  the  '  bracae ' 
were  not  to  be  worn  by  citizens  within  the  walls  of  Roman 
towns. 

The  question  of  the  material  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  dress  is 
not  an  easy  one  to  solve.  No  mere  guesswork  is  of  any  avail,, 
and  microscopical  and  chemical  analysis  of  the  actual  fibres 
are  the  only  means  available  for  arriving  at  the  truth.  Linen, 
wool,  and  even  silk,  as  also  hemp  for  strings,  have  all  been 
reported  as  found  in  Anglo-Saxon  graves,  and  the  statements 
may  be  taken  for  what  they  are  worth.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
with  all  the  resources  of  the  modern  scientific  laboratory  it 
is  by  no  means  easy  to  distinguish  one  kind  of  fibre  from 
another,  as  the  portion  of  fabric  must  first  be  very  carefully 
cleansed,  and  even  then  to  ascertain  what  is  wool  or  flax  or 
woody  fibre  is  difficult.  The  various  portions  of  fabric  which 
the  writer  has  submitted  to  scientific  friends  who  have  kindly 
examined  them  for  him  have  all  turned  out  to  be  woollen, 
but  there  is  no  reason  why  linen  or  even  silk  should  not 
declare  its  presence.  The  fabric  shown  PL  lxxxiv,  3,  adhering 
to  the  front  and  back  of  a  fibula  from  Suffolk  in  the  Fenton 
collection,  is  of  wool. 

With  the  tunic  and  the  cloak  are  closely  connected  the 
fibula,  for  it  was  in  the  fastening  of  these  that  the  brooch  was 
almost  exclusively  employed.  The  general  view  is  that  when 
fibulae  are  found  in  pairs  they  formed  the  attachments  of  the 
female  tunic,  and  a  pair  of  fibulae  is  held  to  betoken  a  woman's 


USE  OF  BROOCHES  WITH  DRESS  381 

grave.  The  single  brooch  signifies  a  male  interment  and  is 
supposed  to  have  fastened  the  cloak  upon  the  right  shoulder 
after  the  classical  fashion.  Justinian  wears  it  so  in  the  Ravenna 
mosaic,  PL  xxxin,  2  (p.  243),  and  so  does  Roma  in  No.  3, 
while  Theodora  wears  a  brooch  on  each  shoulder  though  we 
cannot  see  exactly  what  they  fasten.  Whether  brooches  were 
required  for  the  male  tunic  is  doubtful  and  here  the  Hal- 
berstadt  reliefs  are  very  useful.  The  figure  to  the  right  in  the 
lower  relief,  PL  lxxxiii,  2,  wears  a  short  tunic  with  sleeves, 
for  these  are  clearly  indicated  by  folds  on  the  arms,  and  it  is 
evidently  a  shaped  garment  like  a  shirt  opening  down  the 
front.  No  brooch  would  be  required  for  this,  except  it  may 
be  to  close  it  up  by  the  throat.  The  tunics  of  the  women  on 
the  other  hand  resemble  the  Dorian  chiton  of  the  Greeks  in 
that  there  is  no  provision  of  sleeves,  but  the  stuff  is  passed 
under  the  armpits  and  the  two  edges  of  it  brought  together 
on  the  points  of  the  shoulder.  For  the  attachment  here  the 
brooches  found  so  constantly  in  pairs  in  Teutonic  graves  would 
readily  serve.  This  occurrence  of  fibulae  in  pairs  in  women's 
graves  is  noticed  in  connection  with  Kingston  (Saxonbury) 
near  Lewes,  Sussex  ;  with  Kempston,  Beds  ;  with  Marston  St. 
Lawrence,  Northants,  where  there  were  ten  pairs  and  only  one 
single  one  ;  while  recently  at  least  eight  pairs  of  saucer  brooches 
have  been  found  at  Alfriston,  Sussex,  with  two  odd  ones. 
The  mantles  enveloping  parts  of  the  figures  of  the  women 
are,  like  the  Greek  himation,  used  as  drapery  rather  than  as 
garments  of  definite  cut  and  fit,  and  for  the  temporary  fastening 
of  these  in  any  required  position  the  pins  of  six  or  seven 
inches  in  length  already  illustrated  would  come  in  handily. 
We  have  seen  that  there  is  no  reason  to  relegate  these  exclu- 
sively to  the  purposes  of  the  coiffure.  Where  women  wore 
a  sleeved  tunic  the  arrangements  for  fastening  would  be 
different.  The  Halberstadt  reliefs  give  us  no  help  here,  but 
there  are  women  in  sleeved  tunics  on  the  Antonine  column,  as 
for  example   the   child   in   PL  lxxxiii,  5.     Here  there  is  no 


382  COSTUME 

sign  of  an  opening  at  the  neck  in  front,  but  considering  that, 
as  Tacitus  tells  us  about  the  early  Germans  and  as  we  know 
was  the  case  in  Greece  and  to  a  lesser  extent  at  Rome,  the 
dress  of  the  two  sexes  was  in  these  times  very  much  the  same, 
we  may  assume  that  the  sleeved  tunic  of  the  women  would  be 
often  made  up  like  that  of  the  men  on  the  diptych,  and  in 
this  case  there  would  be  arrangements  for  closing  it  when 
necessary  at  the  throat.  Brooches  on  the  shoulders  would 
in  this  case  not  be  needful  as  the  garment  would  be  shaped 
and  sewn. 

These  considerations  suggest  an  explanation  for  some 
anomalous  appearances  in  the  positions  of  fibulae  in  our 
Anglo-Saxon  cemeteries.  Only  those  instances  count  where 
the  exploration  of  the  graves  was  carefully  supervised  and 
reported  on.  It  is  stated  for  example  by  Miss  Layard  about 
Ipswich  that  cin  the  Ipswich  cemetery  we  never  find  more 
than  one  of  the  larger  brooches  on  one  individual,  though 
the  smaller  ring  brooches  are  found  in  pairs.  That  both  the 
square  headed  brooches  and  the  circular  jewelled  brooches 
were  worn  in  the  centre  beneath  the  chin  we  have  the  evidence 
of  the  verdigrized  condition  of  many  of  the  chin  and  neck 
bones,' *  and  Mr.  Reginald  Smith  notes  in  the  Victoria  History  2 
that  '  ring  brooches  were  found  one  above  the  other  on  the 
breast,  not  as  the  typical  West  Saxon  brooches,  one  on  each 
shoulder.'  This  certainly  suggests  the  closing  up  of  an 
opening  in  front,  perhaps  by  two  small  brooches  below  and  a 
single  large  one  at  the  top,  though  of  course  this  last  may 
have  served  to  fasten  a  fichu  or  cape.  At  Chessell  Down  in 
the  Isle  of  Wight  the  position  in  which  the  brooches,  always 
appearing  in  pairs,  were  discovered  seemed  '  to  show  that  they 
were  used  to  close  the  tunic  at  the  neck  and  breast.'  3  At 
Sleaford,  Lincolnshire,  where,  it  may  be  remembered,  the 
bodies  were  nearly  all  in  a  crouching  position,  it  often  hap- 

1  Archaeologia,  lx,  333.  2  Suffolk,  1,  331. 

8  Victoria  History  Hants,  1,  388. 


SLEEVED  TUNICS  383 

pened  that  there  were  a  pair  of  fibulae  on  the  shoulders 
and  a  single  one  at  the  breast,1  and  the  same  arrangement  is 
reported  from  Brighthampton,  Oxon.2  At  Sleaford  there  was 
a  remarkable  abundance  of  clasps  found  lying  by  the  wrists 
of  skeletons.  At  least  36  cases  were  noticed  and  in  all  but 
three  there  was  evidence  that  the  graves  were  of  women,  and 
this  is  some  proof  that  the  tunics  of  the  women  were  sleeved. 
It  is  true  that  the  explorer,  Mr.  Thomas,  appeared  to  regard 
them  as  fastenings  of  bracelets  which  do  not  necessarily  involve 
sleeves,  but  on  the  other  hand  the  triangular  pieces  found  in 
other  cemeteries  (p.  365)  were  certainly  to  cover  the  openings 
above  the  fastenings  of  sleeves,  and  the  connection  of  clasp 
and  sleeve  may  be  assumed  as  normal.     See  also  (p.  364). 

Mr.  Fenton  has  in  his  collection  in  London  a  pair  of 
clasps  from  Suffolk  to  which  still  adhere  considerable  portions 
of  the  fabric  to  which  they  were  sewn.  This  is  distinctly  dress 
material  and  not  part  of  a  bracelet.  The  suite  PI.  lxxix,  i, 
from  Barrington,  Cambs,  we  would  regard  as  typical,  for 
here  clasps  with  the  triangular  adjuncts  betokening  sleeves 
occur  in  company  with  a  single  handsome  square-headed 
fibula  which  we  can  imagine  closing  the  opening  in  the  tunic 
at  the  throat.  It  may  surprise  us  therefore  at  Sleaford  to  find 
fibulae  used  in  pairs  on  the  shoulder  parts  of  tunics  presum- 
ably sleeved,  but  the  difficulty  is  removed  by  the  statement 
of  the  explorer  about  the  bead  necklets,  which  he  says  were 
not  necklets  proper  but  '  simply  festoons  of  beads,  in  many 
instances  double  ones,  extending  from  the  one  shoulder  to 
the  other,  supported  at  either  end  by  a  fibula  or  pin.' 3 
Fibulae  worn  on  the  shoulders  when  not  needed  for  fastening 
the  dress  may  sometimes  be  explained  in  this  fashion,  but 
they  may  also  have  been  worn  merely  as  ornaments,  the 
actual  fastening  being  confined  to  the  front. 

However   the   distribution   of  fibulae    in   relation    to   the 

1  Archaeologia,  l,  123.  2  ibid.,  xxxvm,  90. 

3  ibid.,  l,  387.     See  postea  (p.  435). 


384  COSTUME 

body  may  be  explained,  and  the  subject  is  a  difficult  one,  it 
can  be  asserted  with  some  confidence  that  women  wore  sleeved 
tunics  as  well  as  sleeveless  ones,  and  that  the  existence  of 
clasps  in  a  grave  is  evidence  that  the  former  were  in  the 
particular  case  in  use.  Clasps  we  have  seen  are  with  com- 
paratively few  exceptions  confined  to  Anglian  districts  and 
indeed  to  the  central  part  of  the  Anglian  area  around  Cam- 
bridgeshire. Is  it  hazardous  to  conjecture  that  these  people 
had  northern  connections  and  wore  a  warmer  dress  than  the 
Saxons  and  Jutes  who  had  become  acclimatized  in  more 
southern  surroundings  ?  If  this  were  the  case  clasps  would 
possess  no  small  archaeological  significance,  •  but  it  must  be 
repeated  that  we  are  here  very  much  in  the  domain  of  con- 
jecture. 

Below  the  bottom  edge  of  the  male  tunic  which  seems  to 
have  reached  to  the  knee  the  legs  were  commonly  covered  with 
the  trews  or  hosen  over  which  by  way  of  an  ornamental  finish 
to  the  costume  appeared  the  '  cross  gartering '  noticed  in  the 
case  of  the  dress  of  Charles  the  Great  and  figured  PL  lxxxii, 
2,  3.  The  former  presence  of  long  shoe  latchets  of  the  kind 
has  been  inferred  from  the  existence  of  numerous  small 
buckles,  such  as  PL  lxxxv,  4,  which  would  come  in  handily 
to  fasten  the  ends  of  these.  Remains  of  actual  foot-gear 
of  Anglo-Saxon  make  are  hardly  known,  though  Roman 
shoes  are  abundantly  in  evidence  in  some  collections  such  as 
that  of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries  of  Scotland  at  Edinburgh. 
They  are  examples  of  Roman  ornamental  leather  work,  and 
a  similar  piece  of  leather  ornamented  in  like  fashion  with 
open  work  was  found  by  Faussett  in  a  Kentish  grave,  see 
Inventorium  Sepukkrak,  p.  152  ;  it  does  not  however  seem 
to  have  been  part  of  a  shoe. 

The  Germanic  dress  has  only  been  considered  in  its  simpler 
aspects.  People  of  wealth  and  position,  both  in  the  period  of 
the  migrations  and  in  that  following  on  the  settlement  in  new 
seats,  indulged  in  considerable  luxury  in  costume  and  varied 


LXXXIV 

facing  p.  385 


GOLD  STRIPS,  TEXTILES,  ETC. 


4,  natural  size  ;  3,  reduced  ;  2,  less  than  half  size  ;   1,  enlarged  2J  times 


GOLD-INWOVEN  TISSUES  385 

its  forms  while  elaborating  it  in  details.  We  are  told  that  the 
Gothic  youths  who  were  distributed  as  hostages  in  Roman 
cities  when  the  Visigoths  were  allowed  to  cross  the  Danube  in 
376  a.d.  were  admired  as  much  for  their  rich  attire  as  for 
their  fair  presence,  while  Bishop  Aldhelm's  tract  de  Virginitate 
of  which  there  was  question  earlier  in  this  work,  Vol.  1,  p.  233, 
is  proof  that  dress  among  the  Anglo-Saxon  ladies  of  VII 
might  assume  a  fantastically  gorgeous  character.  Only  in  the 
case  of  one  of  these  bits  of  extra  finery  is  there  any  connec- 
tion with  tomb  furniture,  and  this  is  the  c  vitta '  or  ornamental 
band  for  confining  the  hair. 

Such  bands  we  know  from  literary  notices  already  quoted 
might  be  of  the  precious  metals  and  set  with  gems.  Nothing 
answering  to  this  description  seems  to  have  been  found  in 
Anglo-Saxon  graves,  but  a  fine  golden  diadem  for  the  head 
set  with  garnets  was  found  in  southern  Russia  and  has  lately 
been  added  to  the  Volkerkunde  Museum  at  Berlin.  What 
we  have  to  deal  with  here  is  not  metal  but  tissue. 

One  Germanic  lady  on  the  Antonine  column  PI.  lxxxiii,  4, 
has  her  hair  confined  under  a  kind  of  coif.  Interesting  dis- 
coveries in  some  of  the  Kentish  cemeteries  including  Bifrons, 
and  on  some  non-Kentish  sites,  proved  the  existence  as  part 
of  the  head  dress  of  Saxon  ladies  of  pieces  of  fabric  partly 
woven  with  strips  of  gold.  Similar  gold-inwoven  strips  were 
used  as  bracelets  or  at  any  rate  were  worn  about  the  wrists 
where  traces  remain.  The  stuff  has  of  course  almost  wholly 
disappeared  but  the  gold  survives,  and  quite  a  boxful  of  the 
gleaming  strips  adorns  the  collection  of  the  Kent  Archaeo- 
logical Society  at  Maidstone.  The  famous  Taplow  Barrow 
contained  a  treasure  of  the  kind,  and  here  both  fabric  and 
pattern  are  to  some  extent  preserved  as  well  as  the  inde- 
structible metal.  Most  of  the  find  is  in  the  British  Museum 
but  a  little  is  at  Reading. 

PL  lxxxiv,  1  (enlarged)  and  2,  give  an  idea  of  what  is  pre- 
served.   Strips  of  metallic  gold,  not  gilded  silver,  measuring 

III  2B 


386  COSTUME 

in  width  j^y  in.  and  in  thickness  -g-J-^  in.,1  are  woven  into  a 
fabric  composed  of  fine  wool 2  by  the  process  known  as 
'  Gobelins '  technique,  in  which  the  strips  in  question  do  not 
go  all  across  the  warp  but  are  intertwined  with  the  warp 
threads  only  in  those  parts  where  the  metallic  filaments  are  to 
show.  In  consequence  of  this  the  gold  which  is  imperishable 
has  come  away  bodily  from  those  portions  of  the  decaying 
fabric  in  which  it  was  used,  and  it  will  be  seen  by  reference  to 
PL  lxxxiv,  2,  that  the  gold  strips  were  woven  into  the  stuff 
in  patches  some  of  rectangular  others  of  triangular  shape.  In 
the  case  of  every  strand  when  the  limit  of  the  required  patch 
of  gold  was  reached  the  strip  was  doubled  back  and  returned 
forming  a  parallel  strand,  the  wavy  surface  of  the  strip  being 
caused  by  the  alternate  pressures  up  and  down  of  the  woollen 
threads  over  and  under  which  it  was  passed  by  the  shuttle  or 
needle.  PI.  lxxxiv,  i,  shows  an  enlargement  of  one  of  the 
rectangular  patches  in  which  it  will  be  seen  that  a  distinct 
pattern  has  been  formed  of  triangles  or  possibly  squares 
separated  by  zigzag  lines  in  which  only  the  woollen  ground 
appears.  This  pattern  closely  resembles  certain  textile  motives 
which  occur  on  the  woven  garments  found  in  the  Thorsberg 
Moss  in  Schleswig,  and  dating  from  about  IV.  These  are 
almost  certainly  of  northern  origin  as  the  garments  on  which 
some  of  the  patterns  appear  are  c  trews,',  a  form  of  vesture 
not  favoured  by  classical  peoples.  The  agreement  of  these 
northern  patterns  with  those  on  the  Taplow  textiles  is  an 
argument  to  oppose  to  those  who  are  too  ready  to  affirm  that 
anything  peculiarly  rich  and  elaborate,  like  these  gold-inwoven 
fabrics,  must  necessarily  be  '  Roman.'  The  elaborate  gold 
work  of  '  barbaric  '  origin,  in  Scandinavia,  PH.  liv,  lv  (p.  309), 

1  For  these  dimensions  the  writer  is  indebted  to  the  kindness  of  his 
colleague  Professor  Harvey  Littlejohn,  who  has  ascertained  them  in  his 
laboratory  by  the  micrometer. 

2  This  was  also  made  certain  in  the  Medical  Jurisprudence  laboratory  by 
Professor  Littlejohn. 


GOLD-INWOVEN  TISSUES  387 

Ireland,  and  the  various  centres  of  Teutonic  craftsmanship, 
shows  that  there  was  nothing  in  the  technique  of  gold  for 
which  the  Celtic  or  German  artist  needed  lessons  from  the 
Romans,  while  the  fact  of  the  fabric  being  of  wool,  and  not, 
for  example,  of  silk  or  even  of  fine  linen,  is  in  favour  of  the 
textile  being  of  native  make. 

The  Taplow  fabric  may  have  belonged  to  a  cloak  as  the 
burial  was  a  male  one,  but  most  of  the  Kentish  gold  strands 
were  found  by  the  heads  of  the  corpses  and  were  certainly  the 
remains  of  the  '  vittae.'  The  filaments  with  which  they  were 
interwoven  are  not,  at  any  rate  at  Maidstone,  preserved. 
Pins  may  of  course  have  been  in  use  to  adjust  the  place  of 
such  a  diadem  or  coif  as  well  as  to  fix  the  hair  itself  in  the 
knot  or  chignon,  and  we  should  explain  in  this  way  the  double 
pins  connected  by  a  chain  of  which  specimens  are  shown  on 
PI.  lxxxi.  The  shortness  of  the  space  allowed  by  the  chain 
between  the  pins,  in  the  Roundway  Down  example  at  Devizes 
about  5  in.,  makes  the  use  of  them  on  the  head  rather  than 
on  the  breast  practically  certain. 


END   OF    VOL.    Ill 


S5-BH512. 


